Part 4: The Truth at the Ruined Altar
Esteban violently stormed inside, with Yohandra stumbling closely behind him. "Let her go!" Esteban roared, his voice hoarse with desperation.
The man holding the child hostage was none other than the powerful patriarch thought to be dead for three years: Leonardo. He stepped out from the shadows behind the altar, his hair completely white, but his eyes as sharp and predatory as an eagle's. Next to him, shockingly, stood Esteban's own mother—the woman who had called to warn him moments ago.
"Mom...?" Esteban gasped, his world completely crumbling. "Why are you here? You said the police..."
His mother couldn't bear to look him in the eyes. She lowered her head, her voice trembling: "Esteban... forgive me. I had to do it... If I didn't, your father would kill us all. He... he never died."
Leonardo burst into a booming laugh that echoed through the empty church: "Son, did you really think you were smart? Your mother, your fiancée, and this entire empire... they all belong to me. This bastard daughter of yours, carrying our bloodline, cannot be allowed to exist with the blood of a low-class woman!"
At that moment, the jilted bride—who had been silent the whole time—finally looked up at Esteban. There was no hatred in her eyes, only profound agony. She looked at the sobbing child in her arms, then at the dying Yohandra.
"Esteban..." The bride spoke, her voice eerily calm. "Do you know why your father chose me to be your bride? It wasn't for a business alliance..."
The bride slowly stood up, shielding the little girl behind her back, and turned to face Leonardo: "Because your father knew that I am the adopted daughter he abandoned years ago. He wanted us to marry to turn your life into a cruel joke—to punish me for secretly helping Yohandra hide for the past six years!"
A shocking plot twist.
"What?!" Leonardo’s face twisted in rage, instantly redirecting the gun from the child to the bride. "You dare betray me?"
"I didn't betray you. I am just demanding justice for my mother—the woman you pushed off a cliff 20 years ago!" the bride screamed, lunging forward to tightly cover the child with her body.
Bang! A gunshot echoed, piercing the heavy air of the church.
Blood splattered across the white rose petals scattered on the aisle runner. But the person who fell to the ground was neither the bride nor the child.
It was Leonardo.
Standing at the church entrance was Hector, the assistant Esteban had knocked out, holding a smoking gun. He wiped the blood from his forehead, looking down at the lifeless body of the billionaire chairman.
"I have endured your cruelty for 30 years, Leonardo. It’s time for this game to end," Hector said coldly, before turning to Esteban. "Master Esteban, the police are indeed coming. But not to arrest you. They are here for the masterminds of the murder case from three years ago. I have handed over all evidence of your father's faked death and crimes to the prosecutor."
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The flashing red and blue lights of police cars flooded through the stained-glass windows of the church. Esteban rushed forward, pulling Yohandra and their daughter into a tight embrace. The little girl sobbed, handing the remaining half of the torn photograph to her father: "Daddy... save Mommy..."
Esteban pressed the two torn pieces of the photograph back together. The happy, unbroken faces of their past were fully revealed under the light of justice. The storm had passed, but the deep secrets of the billionaire family and the true price of freedom had only just begun to unfold...
