Chapter 6 - The True Will
Paola fell to her knees beside the table, her manicured fingers scrambling across the legal documents. As her eyes scanned the paternity match percentage and the legal citations regarding the DeLuca primogeniture clause, her breath came in short, panicked gasps.
"No... no, this can't be right," Paola whimpered, looking up at our father. "Daddy, you told me Lorenzo’s shares were being absorbed into the secondary trust! You said Sofia and Emma were getting the voting shares for the European ports when they turned eighteen! We bought the villa in St. Moritz based on those dividend projections!"
"Your father lied to you, Paola," I said coldly, looking down at my sister. "Or rather, he and Carmen manufactured a fraud. They let me adopt Renata without disclosing her parentage so that her legal status would be classified as an unrelated dependent. That way, she wouldn't trigger the automatic execution of Lorenzo's primary trust."
"Mauricio, listen to reason," Antonio pleaded, his arrogance completely dissolving into desperate bartering. "Think of the company! If this gets out, if the board learns that Lorenzo's heir is a six-year-old child under a contentious conservatorship, our stock will plummet! We will lose control of the Atlantic trade lines! We kept her here! We clothed her! We gave her a roof over her head!"
"You made her scrub grease off baking pans on Christmas Day!" I spat, taking a step toward my father until I was inches from his weathered face. "You told her she wasn't really one of us! You made her feel like a burden, an intruder, a servant in her own father's house!"
"She was spoiled!" Carmen screamed, stepping forward, completely unraveling. "You bought her designer dresses! You spent hours reading to her while ignoring Paola's girls! She needed discipline! She needed to know her place! She has her mother's arrogant eyes, Mauricio! Every time I looked at her, I saw the woman who stole my Lorenzo away from us!"
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"Lorenzo loved Elena," I said, each word hitting Carmen like a physical blow. "And Lorenzo would be thoroughly disgusted by the woman who calls herself his mother."
Renata clutched the silver bell ornament in the armchair, watching the adults with wide, silent hazel eyes. She didn't fully comprehend trusts, shares, or corporate control, but she understood the truth that was finally ringing through the grand hall: she was loved, she was wanted, and she was never going to be pushed into the shadows again.
