Chapter 9 - The DNA Lie
Rachel ordered DNA tests before Silvio could even ask.
Mia.
Ethan.
Silvio.
Lucinda.
Stored samples from Elena.
Stored samples from Arturo.
Everything.
While they waited, Silvio watched Anthony’s video again.
Mia is not a Russo.
She is a Moretti.
The words made no sense.
Unless the family tree itself was false.
At 3:15 p.m., Rachel entered the conference room with the results.
She didn’t sit.
“That bad?”
“Complicated.”
Silvio stood.
“Tell me.”
“Mia is biologically Elena’s daughter.”
“Okay.”
“David Russo was not her biological father.”
Silvio’s stomach dropped.
“Who was?”
Rachel handed him the report.
Silvio read the percentage.
Then the inferred relationship.
His hands went numb.
“Arturo?”
“No.”
The DNA showed Mia’s father was a first-degree relative of Arturo.
Not Silvio.
Not a cousin.
Likely Arturo’s brother.
Anthony.
Silvio stared.
“Anthony fathered Elena’s child?”
Rachel nodded grimly.
“He would have been seventy-something.”
“And Elena thirty.”
“Yes.”
Silvio’s disgust turned to fury.
“Was it consensual?”
“No way to know from DNA.”
But Silvio suspected.
Everything connected to Marcellus involved manipulation.
Rachel continued.
“There’s more.”
“Of course there is.”
“Elena’s own DNA.”
Silvio looked up.
“She was not Clara and Thomas Russo’s biological daughter.”
“Whose?”
Rachel hesitated.
“Isabella’s.”
Silvio sat.
“My mother?”
“Yes.”
“That makes Elena my—”
“Half sister.”
Silvio stared at the wall.
His cousin had actually been his sister.
Raised by Isabella’s sister Clara.
“Why?”
Rachel shook her head.
“We need Isabella.”
Silvio finally understood Arturo’s bizarre wording.
Elena’s children must remain alive.
Not distant relatives.
His wife’s grandchildren.
His own family in a far more direct way than Silvio had ever known.
Mia and Ethan were Silvio’s niece and nephew.
Mia also carried Anthony’s Moretti blood.
Ethan carried Grant’s Hale blood.
Together, the children carried three founding Marcellus lines.
Moretti.
Russo through Elena’s legal and family structure?
But biologically perhaps no Russo.
Hale.
The structure was collapsing into deliberate genetic engineering.
Silvio looked at Rachel.
“Anthony created them as keys.”
“I think that’s exactly what happened.”
“Why?”
“To take total control.”
Silvio paced.
“If Mia is Anthony’s biological child—”
“She gives him a direct descendant.”
“And Ethan gives Grant one.”
“Yes.”
“Marcellus doesn’t just follow family branches.”
“It follows specific combinations.”
Rachel pointed to Elena’s recovered contract.
“There are references to ‘cross-line descendants.’”
Silvio felt sick.
The founders had designed inheritance like a breeding program.
And later generations had exploited it.
“They treated women and children like corporate assets.”
Rachel said nothing.
At midnight the next night, Silvio went to the shipyard.
He did not bring Mia or Ethan.
He brought two armored SUVs filled with tactical officers.
Anthony expected betrayal.
The shipyard was empty.
Except for one shipping container.
Inside was Isabella.
Alive.
Untied.
Silvio ran to her.
For twenty-two years, he had imagined this moment.
In his dreams, he hugged her.
Cried.
Asked why she left.
Instead, he stopped five feet away.
She looked at him.
“Silvio.”
His voice broke.
“Mom?”
Isabella covered her mouth.
Then he crossed the space.
She held him.
The years disappeared for one minute.
He was sixteen again.
A terrified boy holding his mother.
When they separated, his grief became anger.
“Why didn’t you come back?”
“I tried.”
“For twenty-two years?”
“Silvio—”
“You watched me.”
“Yes.”
“You watched Lucinda marry Grant.”
“I couldn’t expose myself.”
“You let us believe you were dead.”
Her eyes filled.
“I thought Arturo was protecting you.”
“Arturo is dead.”
“I know.”
Silvio stepped away.
“Anthony says Mia is his daughter.”
Isabella closed her eyes.
“So you know.”
“Did he assault Elena?”
Isabella’s silence answered.
Silvio’s fists clenched.
“When?”
“Elena went searching for Marcellus nine years ago.”
Isabella struggled to speak.
“Anthony drugged her.”
Silvio looked away, sickened.
“She became pregnant.”
“Mia.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t Elena go to police?”
“She tried.”
Isabella’s expression hardened.
“The detective assigned to her complaint was on the Marcellus list.”
Silvio remembered the names.
Judges.
Police.
Officials.
“She realized reporting Anthony would only warn him.”
“And Ethan?”
“Grant learned what Anthony had done.”
Silvio understood.
“He copied him.”
“Yes.”
Isabella cried now.
“Grant wanted his own cross-line heir.”
Silvio wanted to destroy both men.
“Why did Elena keep the pregnancies?”
“That was her decision.”
Isabella wiped her eyes.
“She refused to let what those men did define her children.”
Silvio looked toward the open container doors.
“Where’s Anthony?”
“Gone.”
“He just released you?”
“No.”
Isabella reached into her coat.
“He wants something.”
She handed Silvio a card.
An address.
Moretti Tower.
His own corporate headquarters.
“He said the final transfer happens tomorrow.”
“What transfer?”
“Marcellus.”
“To whom?”
Isabella looked frightened.
“Anthony discovered a loophole.”
Silvio waited.
“If every eligible descendant except one is legally incapacitated or criminally disqualified…”
She swallowed.
“…the surviving custodian receives temporary control.”
Silvio saw the plan.
Arturo dead.
Elena dead.
Voss dead.
Lucinda arrested for murder and Arturo’s death.
Grant missing.
Mia and Ethan vulnerable.
Silvio?
“What disqualifies me?”
Isabella looked at him.
“Murder.”
Silvio understood immediately.
Anthony was not trying to get Silvio to surrender the children.
He was trying to make Silvio kill Grant.
Then Silvio would be criminally disqualified.
Anthony would stand alone.
A phone rang inside the shipping container.
Silvio answered.
Grant’s voice.
“Hello, brother.”
Silvio’s entire body tightened.
“Where are you?”
Grant laughed weakly.
“Anthony has me.”
Silvio heard pain in his breathing.
“He shot me after Voss wounded me.”
“Why keep you alive?”
“DNA confirmation.”
Silvio looked at Isabella.
Grant continued.
“But tomorrow he won’t need me anymore.”
A pause.
“If you want me alive, come to Moretti Tower.”
“Why should I care?”
“You shouldn’t.”
Grant coughed.
“But I have the original Marcellus ledger.”
Silvio froze.
“And Anthony doesn’t know.”
May you like
Grant whispered.
“Yet.”
