Chapter 2 - The Child Who Knew Too Much
For several seconds, the only sound in my office was the faint ticking of the antique clock behind my desk.
Thirteen years of grief had just become thirteen years of deception.
I looked at Clara and asked the only question that mattered.
"Why today?"
She tightened her arms around Emma.
"Because she turned six this morning."
The precision of Luca's warning disturbed me more than the warning itself.
Mateo folded his arms and studied Clara like a security problem.
"A tattoo and a story are not proof," he said.
Clara nodded immediately when I demanded a DNA test.
"Anything," she said.
Emma raised one hand as though she were in school.
"What's DNA?"
"It tells people if they're family," I answered.
She smiled.
"Like wolves?"
I looked at the ink hidden beneath my cuff.
Emma had already noticed it.
She opened her sketchbook and drew two wolves facing one another.
"Daddy says bad people see one wolf," she said.
"Family sees both."
Only Luca, my father Marcus, and I knew the meaning of the Twin Wolf Covenant.
Then Emma drew a house with a red door.
My pulse stopped.
The red-door house was a forgotten Vale property in northern Vermont where Luca and I had spent winters as children.
The records said it had been demolished after my father's death.
Emma had never been there.
"Daddy says one wolf watches the door and one watches the money," she said.
Then she turned a page filled with groups of numbers.
Mateo leaned closer.
"Those are not random," he said.
The patterns resembled account indices.
Clara swore she had never seen them before.
Emma said Luca repeated the numbers in her dreams.
I did not believe in ghosts, but I believed in preparation.
Luca had always prepared ten moves ahead.
I ordered Mateo to locate Dr. Julian Reeves, our retired family physician, and to investigate the Vermont property without using Vale systems.
Clara then removed a small brass key from beneath her coat.
A double-wolf symbol was carved into it.
I recognized it from my father's study.
Before I could ask more, my private line rang.
Victor Vale's name appeared on the screen.
I answered without greeting him.
His voice was smooth and amused.
"Interesting way to cancel a board meeting, Sebastian."
I said nothing.
Then his tone changed.
"Send the woman away."
Clara went pale.
I asked how he knew she was there.
Victor gave a soft laugh.
"Whatever Clara Bennett told you, don't believe it."
He knew her full name.
Then he added the sentence that ended every illusion I still had about my family.
"Do not make the mistake your brother made."
May you like
The line went dead.
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