CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 5
The Daughter Who Wasn’t
Daniel hit the floor.
Glass shattered behind him.
Natalie screamed.
When the emergency lights came on, Eleanor was lying near the doorway. Blood spread across her shoulder.
Her gun had fallen several feet away.
Daniel looked toward the broken library window.
A figure moved through the garden.
He ran outside but found only footprints in the wet grass leading toward the estate wall.
By the time he returned, Natalie was pressing a cloth against Eleanor’s wound.
“Who shot you?” Daniel asked.
Eleanor’s breathing was shallow.
“Victor’s man.”
“You said Natalie was his daughter.”
Eleanor looked at the woman beside her.
“Anna.”
Natalie shook her head.
“My name is Natalie Brooks.”
“No,” Eleanor whispered. “The real Natalie died when she was two.”
Daniel felt the room tilt.
Richard had told them Laura Bennett died when Natalie was two.
He never said the child died too.
Eleanor continued.
“Victor’s wife gave birth to Anna the same year. When Victor needed someone inside Richard’s family, he arranged the substitution.”
Natalie stepped back.
“That’s impossible.”
“You were two. Richard was grieving. Margaret accepted you because Victor threatened Daniel.”
Daniel stared at Eleanor.
“Richard knew?”
“Not at first.”
“When did he find out?”
“When you were sixteen.”
Daniel turned toward Natalie.
She looked shattered.
“All these years,” she whispered. “Dad knew I wasn’t his?”
“And he still raised you,” Eleanor said.
Natalie began to cry.
Daniel knelt beside his aunt.
“Why were you protecting Victor?”
“I wasn’t.”
“You took the USB.”
“Because Samuel told me Richard had recorded names that could get everyone killed.”
“Did you sabotage Emily’s car?”
“No.”
“Who did?”
“I don’t know.”
Daniel did not believe her.
Eleanor gripped his sleeve.
“Victor didn’t send the bank statement to expose Richard. He sent it to make you attack him.”
“Why?”
“Because Richard planned to transfer control of Brooks International to you tomorrow.”
Daniel frowned.
“I left the company years ago.”
“That’s why he chose you. Victor controls board members, investors, and half the family. You were outside his system.”
The pieces shifted.
The gathering had not only been a birthday party.
It had been the night before a transfer of power.
Victor needed Richard removed and Daniel emotionally unstable.
If Daniel killed his father, he would never inherit control.
“Where is Samuel?” Daniel asked.
Eleanor’s eyes moved toward the hallway.
“Probably already at the hospital.”
Daniel called Richard’s security team.
No answer.
He called the hospital.
Samuel Levin had arrived fifteen minutes earlier claiming to have medical power of attorney.
Daniel and Natalie raced from the mansion.
At the hospital, Richard’s room was empty.
A nurse lay unconscious near the service elevator.
Security footage showed Samuel pushing Richard in a wheelchair toward the parking garage.
Daniel called the police, but the Brooks family name created delay instead of urgency. Officers asked questions. Lawyers arrived. Hospital administrators worried about liability.
Natalie accessed the vehicle database through the family security system.
Samuel’s car was heading east.
“Where?” Daniel asked.
Natalie studied the map.
“There’s a Brooks medical facility in San Bernardino County.”
“The one where Margaret was held?”
“Maybe.”
They took Eleanor’s car.
During the drive, Natalie remained silent.
Finally, she said, “Do you believe her?”
“About your identity?”
“Yes.”
“I believe Richard knew something.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Daniel looked at her.
“You’re my sister.”
She laughed bitterly.
“Even if I was planted in your family?”
“You were two years old.”
“What if Victor used me later?”
“Did he?”
“I don’t know.”
The answer frightened him.
Natalie looked out the window.
“I receive messages sometimes.”
Daniel’s hands tightened on the steering wheel.
“What messages?”
“Birthdays. Instructions. Warnings.”
“From Victor?”
“He never signs them.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because the first message came when I was sixteen. It said if I told anyone, Mom would die.”
“Margaret?”
Natalie nodded.
“He sent photographs.”
Daniel pulled onto the shoulder.
“You knew she was alive?”
“I knew someone wanted me to believe she was.”
“For nineteen years?”
“I was terrified.”
Daniel struck the steering wheel.
“Everyone in this family protects people by lying to them.”
Natalie looked at him.
“You think you’re different? You spent six years hating Dad instead of asking why Emily was investigating Victor.”
“I didn’t know Victor existed.”
“But you knew the story was incomplete.”
The accusation hurt because it was true.
Daniel returned to the road.
The medical facility appeared near dawn. It was hidden behind high fences and registered as a private neurological research center.
The front gate stood open.
Inside, the building was dark.
They found Samuel’s car near a loading entrance.
Daniel took a tire iron from the trunk.
Natalie found Eleanor’s gun beneath the passenger seat.
They entered through a service corridor.
Rooms lined both sides, some filled with old medical equipment, others empty except for restraints attached to beds.
At the end of the hallway, they heard voices.
Samuel.
Richard.
And another man.
Daniel approached quietly.
Through the door window, he saw Richard tied to a chair. Samuel stood beside him.
Across the room sat an elderly man with silver hair and a thin scar across his cheek.
Victor Hale.
He looked directly toward the window.
As if he had been waiting.
“Come in, Daniel,” he called.
Daniel entered with the tire iron raised.
Victor smiled.
“You have your mother’s eyes.”
Daniel looked at Richard.
His father’s face was bruised, but he was conscious.
“Don’t listen to him,” Richard said.
Victor rose.
“Still protecting him from the truth?”
Richard struggled against the restraints.
“The truth is exactly why you brought him here.”
Victor looked at Daniel.
“I brought you here because Richard has lied about the one thing that matters most.”
Daniel’s voice was cold.
“What?”
Victor gestured toward a door at the back of the room.
It opened.
A woman stepped out.
She was older, frail, and unsteady.
But Daniel recognized her immediately.
Margaret Brooks.
His mother.
She looked at Richard, not Daniel.
Then she whispered, “You promised me our son would never learn what we did.”
