CHAPTER 3 — THE WOMAN WHO WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO EXIST
Leandro read the letter three times.
The meaning remained the same.
His father had known Estelle.
Not merely known her.
Protected her.
The letter explained that twenty-three years ago, a Rossi infant had disappeared from Saint Aurelia Hospital.
The official story was that the baby had died.
But his father had discovered evidence that the child had been secretly transferred.
The transfer had been authorized by one person.
Maribel Rossi.
Leandro's mother.
Estelle covered her mouth.
"I can't be..."
Leandro finished the sentence.
"The missing Rossi heir."
Silence.
Daphne whispered, "Then who died?"
Leandro continued reading.
The answer was worse.
A second baby had been declared dead that same night.
The two identities had been switched.
Someone had deliberately erased one child and created another.
Estelle looked at him.
"Why would your mother do that?"
Leandro didn't answer.
Because another question had already entered his mind.
If Estelle was the missing Rossi heir—
then who had been raised as the Rossi heir?
He called the family archivist.
"Bring me every birth record from twenty-three years ago."
The old man arrived thirty minutes later.
He looked terrified.
Leandro spread the documents across the table.
"Which record was altered?"
The archivist stared at them.
Then he whispered:
"All of them."
Leandro's jaw tightened.
"Explain."
"Someone replaced the original hospital registry."
"Who?"
The archivist looked toward the door.
"Your mother."
Before Leandro could react, the old man collapsed.
Daphne caught him.
He was still breathing.
But blood had appeared at the corner of his mouth.
Poison.
Someone had silenced him.
Leandro immediately realized the danger.
Someone knew they were investigating.
He looked at Estelle.
"From this moment on, you don't leave my side."
She nodded.
Then the mansion's alarm sounded.
A guard shouted from the corridor.
"Boss! Someone breached the underground archive!"
Leandro grabbed his gun.
The underground archive contained the Rossi family's oldest records.
May you like
If someone was destroying them now—
the truth was closer than they thought.
