The video glitched.
The picture disappeared.
When it returned, Caleb was closer to the camera.
“If Eleanor exists, it’s because Walter wanted her to exist.”
I felt sick.
“Why?”
Caleb answered as though he could hear me.
“Because of the Cole inheritance.”
Then the screen went black.
The file ended.
Nobody moved.
Dad stared at his reflection in the monitor.
Vanessa was crying silently.
And I was holding a paternity report proving that the seventeen-year-old boy who had found me abandoned beneath his awning had not simply chosen to become my father.
He already was.
But someone had made sure he didn’t know it.
Someone had manipulated Vanessa.
Someone had manipulated Dad.
Someone had used Caleb.
And eighteen years earlier, my grandfather had apparently orchestrated everything because of an inheritance none of us knew existed.
Then Dad’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
He almost ignored it.
I don’t know why he answered.
“Hello?”
Silence.
Then an elderly man’s voice said:
“Mason?”
Dad went rigid.
Vanessa’s eyes widened.
The voice continued.
“You opened Caleb’s box.”
Dad put the call on speaker.
“Who is this?”
The man laughed softly.
Vanessa grabbed the edge of the desk.
She recognized the voice before Dad did.
“Caleb?”
Silence.
Then:
“Hello, Vanessa.”
She nearly collapsed.
My biological uncle—the man everyone believed had disappeared eighteen years earlier—was alive.
And his next words made Dad look directly at me.
“Don’t take Eleanor home.”
Dad tightened his grip on the phone.
“Why?”
Caleb answered:
“Because someone has been waiting eighteen years for her to learn who her real father is.”
A pause.
“And now that she knows, they’re coming for what belongs to her.”
