Chapter 16: The Brother Buried in the Past
The greenhouse went silent.
Everyone looked at Lucas.
Especially me.
“My brother?”” I whispered.
Lucas stared at the floor, breathing heavily.
“I don’t know his name.””
Edward stepped closer.
“Lucas, think carefully.””
Lucas closed his eyes.
For a moment, he looked like the eight-year-old boy from the photograph.
Scared.
Confused.
Trying to remember something adults had forced him to forget.
“I was little,” he said.
His voice shook.
“I was hiding behind the office door.””
I moved closer.
“Which office?””
“The mansion office.””
Vanessa’s face changed.
She knew.
Lucas continued.
“I heard voices.””
Edward asked quietly:
“Whose voices?””
Lucas swallowed.
“Vanessa.””
Then he looked at Michael.
“And Uncle Michael.””
Michael stepped back.
“No.””
Lucas looked at him.
“You were there.””
Michael’s face went pale.
“I was there,” he admitted.
My anger rose.
“Then explain.””
Michael looked at Lucas.
“I didn’t know what they were planning.””
Lucas laughed softly.
A painful sound.
“You always say that.””
Michael looked away.
Edward’s voice was cold.
“You knew enough.””
Michael closed his eyes.
“I knew Vanessa was looking for information about Lucas’s birth.””
“And you helped her,” I said.
“I thought I could control the situation.””
I shook my head.
“You thought you could control Vanessa?””
Nobody answered.
Because everyone knew how impossible that was.
Edward looked at Lucas.
“What else do you remember?””
Lucas stared at the greenhouse floor.
“A man came into the office.””
“Who?””
“I don’t know.””
Vanessa suddenly spoke.
“Stop.””
Everyone turned toward her.
She looked frightened.
Not angry.
Frightened.
Edward noticed too.
“You know who he is.””
Vanessa said nothing.
“Who was he?”” Edward demanded.
She looked at Lucas.
Then whispered:
“Someone who should have never come back.””
My father stepped closer.
“Thomas.””
The name made everyone freeze.
Thomas.
The half-brother I had only learned about days ago.
The man who had supposedly helped Vanessa.
But Lucas shook his head.
“No.””
Everyone looked at him.
“It wasn’t Thomas.””
My confusion grew.
“How do you know?””
Lucas looked at me.
“Because Thomas was there too.””
My stomach dropped.
“What?””
Lucas nodded slowly.
“There were two men.””
Sarah immediately wrote something down.
“Two men in the office?””
“Yes.””
Lucas looked terrified.
“One of them was Thomas.””
“Who was the other?””
Lucas closed his eyes.
Then whispered:
“He called Thomas his son.””
Nobody spoke.
Edward went completely still.
I noticed.
And that scared me more than anything.
“Dad?””
Edward looked at me.
“The other man.””
His voice was barely audible.
“It was Richard Bell.””
The dead attorney.
The man who had supposedly been Edward Carter.
The man who had just released Vanessa from prison.
Sarah immediately checked her phone.
“We need to find him.””
Edward shook his head.
“You won’t.””
“Why?””
“Because Richard Bell was never the real name.””
Sarah frowned.
“What are you saying?””
Edward looked at me.
“He was the person behind everything.””
A cold silence filled the room.
“Who was he?””
My father hesitated.
Then said:
“Someone from my past.””
“That’s not an answer.””
Edward looked toward the broken greenhouse windows.
“It was my brother.””
I stared.
“What?””
Edward nodded.
“My older brother.””
Another secret.
Another hidden Carter.
I felt exhausted.
“How many people in this family were erased?””
Edward looked at me sadly.
“More than you know.””
Before anyone could respond, Sarah’s phone rang.
She answered.
Her expression changed immediately.
“What happened?””
She listened.
Then looked at us.
“Richard Bell’s records were found.””
“Where?””
She swallowed.
“In the Whitmore estate archive.””
Edward’s face turned pale.
“That’s impossible.””
“Why?””
“Because those records were destroyed twenty-five years ago.””
Sarah looked at the report.
“They weren’t destroyed.””
She paused.
“They were hidden.””
The officers searched the estate archive that night.
Behind a false wall, they found hundreds of documents.
Financial records.
Birth records.
Private agreements.
But one file was different.
It had only one word written on it.
MERCY.
Edward opened it.
His hands shook.
Inside was a photograph.
A family photograph.
Four men.
My father.
Michael.
Thomas.
And another man.
The man who had been missing from every family story.
Richard Bell.
On the back of the photograph was a message.
Edward,
You protected the wrong child.
The right one is still mine.
Edward dropped the photograph.
May you like
Because underneath the message was a date.
The date Lucas was born.
