Chapter 5 - Unmasked on Christmas Day
The fire crackled in the massive stone fireplace of the grand hall. The floor was littered with crumpled gold wrapping paper, velvet ribbons, and half-empty crystal flutes of vintage champagne. Sofia and Emma stopped driving their miniature battery-powered cars across the polished mahogany floor, looking up curiously at my rigid expression.
"Mauricio, what is the meaning of this dramatic entrance?" Paola complained, tossing her blonde curls over her shoulder, a diamond bracelet sparkling on her wrist. "The girls were opening their jewelry sets from Mother. Why are you dragging your little orphan into the parlor looking like a chimney sweep?"
"Paola, be quiet!" Carmen snapped sharply, her voice trembling with hysteria.
"No, let her speak, Carmen," I said, setting Renata down gently onto a plush velvet armchair beside the hearth. I handed her a silver bell ornament from the lower branch of the tree. "Play with that for a moment, Renata."
I turned around, facing my family. The air grew arctic.
"How much did you pay the private investigator in Boston to suppress Elena Ramos's medical file four years ago, Mother?" I asked.
The color instantly drained from Paola's face. She dropped her champagne flute, the crystal shattering across the hardwood floor, dark amber wine splashing across her pristine shoes.
"What did you just say?" Paola gasped, her eyes darting toward our mother.
Antonio stepped in front of Carmen, his fists clenched, trying to salvage the crumbling fortress of his authority. "Mauricio, that is ancient history! Elena Ramos was an opportunist who seduced your brother to get her claws into our fortune! She hid that child out of spite!"
"Elena Ramos died in a municipal hospice with forty-two dollars in her bank account while you sat on three hundred million!" I roared, my voice shaking the crystal chandeliers above our heads. "She didn't hide Renata out of spite. She hid her because she knew that you, Antonio, and Carmen would do anything to keep the fortune in your greedy hands!"
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"That's a lie!" Carmen cried, tears of rage finally breaking through her makeup. "We protected this family! Lorenzo was dead! Why should some low-born garden girl's bastard inherit everything while Paola’s legitimate children were left with scraps? Lorenzo’s shares belonged to the dynasty, not to a bastard!"
"She is not a bastard," I said, pulling the certified laboratory DNA report and Arthur Sterling’s notarized testimony from my jacket and slapping them down on the glass coffee table with a resounding smack. "She is Lorenzo's daughter. Certified by genetic sequencing. Confirmed by Arthur Sterling. And legally protected under Great-Grandfather’s irrevocable bloodline trust."
