CHAPTER 4 — THE MAN WHO WORE MY HUSBAND’S FACE
The hidden passage swallowed us into darkness.
Daniel slammed the stone door shut behind us.
A second later, another gunshot thundered through the mansion.
I flinched.
The baby screamed.
“Keep him quiet,” Daniel whispered.
I pressed my son against my chest.
“I’m trying.”
Alejandro stood beside us, breathing hard.
His face had lost all color.
“What the hell is happening?”
Daniel looked at him.
“You really want the answer?”
“Yes.”
“Then stop protecting Mother.”
Alejandro's jaw tightened.
“I didn't know.”
“You didn't want to know.”
“That isn't true.”
Daniel stepped closer.
“You spent years believing every story she told you because it was easier than admitting what she was capable of.”
Alejandro said nothing.
I looked between them.
“Who is the other man?”
Daniel's expression hardened.
“The reason you're alive.”
I stared at him.
“I don't understand.”
“The man beside Victoria.”
“He looked exactly like you.”
“I know.”
“Who is he?”
Daniel hesitated.
Then he said:
“My twin.”
The words struck me harder than the gunshots.
“Your twin?”
Daniel nodded.
“His name is Adrian.”
I looked at Alejandro.
He closed his eyes.
“You have another brother?”
Alejandro answered quietly.
“I thought he died.”
Daniel laughed without humor.
“Apparently, death runs in this family.”
The baby stirred.
I looked down at him.
“Why would Adrian pretend to be you?”
“Because Victoria needed someone who could.”
“Why?”
Daniel's eyes met mine.
“To make you believe I was dead.”
My stomach twisted.
“You're saying Adrian was the man who—”
“Yes.”
Daniel stopped.
He seemed unable to say it.
Alejandro finished the sentence.
“He was the man whose body they identified as Daniel.”
I stared at him.
Everything inside me went cold.
The funeral.
The coffin.
The photographs.
The police report.
The identification.
All of it.
A lie.
I had never buried my husband.
I had buried his twin.
I suddenly understood why the hospital records had felt wrong.
Why Daniel's supposed death had happened so quickly.
Why I had never been allowed to see his face.
Why Victoria had insisted the coffin remain closed.
She hadn't been protecting me.
She had been protecting the lie.
I looked at Daniel.
“Why didn't you come for me?”
His face broke.
“I tried.”
“When?”
“Three days after your funeral.”
“You were watching me?”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn't you come home?”
“Because Adrian was watching you too.”
I shook my head.
“You expect me to believe that?”
Daniel reached into his coat.
He pulled out a stack of photographs.
He handed them to me.
The first showed me leaving a grocery store.
The second showed me entering my apartment.
The third showed me sleeping beside the window.
The fourth showed a black car parked outside my building.
The fifth showed Victoria speaking to a man in a hospital corridor.
My hands trembled.
“How long?”
“Almost three months.”
“Why?”
“Because they threatened to kill you.”
I looked up.
“Who?”
“Victoria.”
Alejandro stared at his brother.
“Mother threatened Emily?”
Daniel nodded.
“She told me that if I contacted you, she would make sure you disappeared.”
I swallowed.
“And the baby?”
Daniel's eyes filled with tears.
“She told me the baby was dead.”
Silence.
I looked down at my son.
Then something occurred to me.
“If Victoria knew the baby was alive…”
Daniel nodded.
“She needed someone to raise him.”
“Victoria.”
“No.”
He looked toward Alejandro.
“Someone else.”
Alejandro frowned.
“Who?”
Daniel's expression became grim.
“The woman you call Victoria isn't the mother of that child.”
Alejandro went still.
“What?”
“She stole him.”
I stared at him.
“Then why does everyone call him her miracle baby?”
“Because she paid for the story.”
I felt sick.
“How much?”
“Enough to make doctors lie. Enough to make nurses disappear. Enough to make a funeral happen.”
Alejandro's face hardened.
“Where did she get him?”
Daniel looked at me.
“From the same hospital where you gave birth.”
My hands tightened around the baby.
“Then how did she know he was mine?”
“She didn't.”
“What?”
“She wasn't looking for your baby.”
Daniel paused.
“She was looking for mine.”
I stared at him.
“Why?”
“Because my father left something behind.”
“What?”
“An inheritance.”
Alejandro suddenly laughed bitterly.
“Of course.”
Daniel looked at him.
“My father left the Castillo controlling shares to his firstborn male descendant.”
Alejandro's smile vanished.
“That's impossible.”
“It isn't.”
“I inherited everything.”
“Because you were told I was dead.”
Alejandro's eyes widened.
Daniel continued.
“And because everyone believed I had no son.”
The baby began to cry.
I rocked him gently.
Daniel looked at him.
“Now you understand.”
I did.
The baby wasn't merely a child.
He was the heir.
The missing heir to the Castillo fortune.
Victoria hadn't stolen him because she hated me.
She had stolen him because his existence threatened everything.
But there was another problem.
I looked at Alejandro.
“Why did she call him her miracle baby?”
Alejandro answered.
“Because my mother couldn't have children after I was born.”
I looked at him.
“She told everyone she had somehow become pregnant.”
Daniel shook his head.
“She didn't.”
“She purchased a pregnancy story.”
My stomach turned.
Then Alejandro remembered something.
“There was an announcement.”
“What announcement?”
“Three months before the baby's birth, Mother announced that she was expecting.”
I stared at him.
Three months.
That was before my son was born.
I felt something snap inside me.
“Then she planned this before I ever entered the hospital.”
Daniel nodded.
“Exactly.”
A strange sound came from the darkness.
A soft click.
Daniel immediately pulled me behind him.
Alejandro raised his gun.
“Who's there?”
Nothing.
Then a voice answered.
My husband's voice.
“Daniel.”
Everyone froze.
The hidden passage suddenly filled with footsteps.
Daniel's face changed.
“He found us.”
Alejandro raised his weapon.
A man stepped from the shadows.
He looked exactly like Daniel.
Same face.
Same height.
Same eyes.
But something was different.
His smile.
It was empty.
Cold.
Adrian.
He stared at me.
Then at the baby.
“Give him to me.”
I stepped backward.
“No.”
His eyes narrowed.
“You don't understand.”
“I understand enough.”
“You have no idea what this child represents.”
“He's my son.”
Adrian laughed.
“He's not just your son.”
Daniel stepped forward.
“Stay away from her.”
Adrian smiled.
“You always were the sentimental one.”
Then he looked at Alejandro.
“You should ask Mother what happened to Father.”
Alejandro's face hardened.
“What did she do?”
Adrian's smile disappeared.
“She didn't kill him.”
Daniel frowned.
“Then who did?”
Adrian looked at me.
“You did.”
I froze.
“What?”
“You were there the night he died.”
“I was in labor.”
“Yes.”
“I never saw him.”
“You saw him.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
Adrian pulled a folded document from his pocket.
He tossed it onto the floor.
It landed at my feet.
I picked it up.
It was a hospital record.
My name.
My signature.
And a statement saying that I had identified my husband's body.
I stared at it.
“I never signed this.”
Daniel stepped beside me.
“That's not your signature.”
Alejandro took the document.
His eyes narrowed.
“This is forged.”
Adrian smiled.
“Exactly.”
He turned toward Daniel.
“Now you understand why they needed you dead.”
Daniel's expression darkened.
“You forged her signature.”
“No.”
Adrian's eyes moved to Victoria's name at the bottom of the page.
“Mother did.”
Alejandro stared at the document.
“My God.”
Adrian suddenly raised his weapon.
Daniel moved in front of me.
A shot exploded.
Daniel fell.
“Daniel!”
He hit the stone floor.
Blood spread across his shirt.
I screamed.
Adrian turned toward the baby.
I grabbed a heavy iron lantern from the wall and swung it.
It struck his arm.
He stumbled.
Alejandro fired.
Adrian disappeared into the darkness.
I dropped beside Daniel.
“Daniel!”
His eyes opened.
He was breathing.
The bullet had struck his shoulder.
Not his heart.
I pressed my hands against the wound.
“You can't die again.”
He smiled weakly.
“I already did once.”
“Don't joke.”
“I missed you.”
Tears filled my eyes.
“I hate you.”
“I know.”
“I hate you for leaving me.”
“I know.”
“I hate you for making me think I was alone.”
“I know.”
Then he reached for my hand.
“But I never stopped loving you.”
I squeezed his fingers.
A loud crash echoed from above.
Alejandro looked toward the passage.
“Someone is coming.”
Daniel struggled to stand.
“We need to get the baby out.”
“Where?”
“Outside the estate.”
I looked at him.
“What about Victoria?”
Daniel's expression hardened.
“She's not going anywhere.”
Alejandro suddenly shook his head.
“No.”
Daniel looked at him.
“No?”
Alejandro pulled out his phone.
“I just sent the evidence to the FBI.”
I stared at him.
“You did what?”
“I sent everything.”
Victoria's financial records.
The hospital files.
The photographs.
The forged documents.
Everything.
Daniel stared at his brother.
“Why?”
Alejandro looked toward the mansion.
“Because she's my mother.”
His voice broke.
“And I spent thirty years believing she was protecting us.”
He looked at me.
“I was wrong.”
For the first time, I saw tears in his eyes.
Then his phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
“Hello?”
A woman's voice came through.
Victoria.
“You really betrayed me.”
Alejandro's face went white.
“Where are you?”
She laughed.
“Somewhere your brother will never find me.”
Daniel grabbed the phone.
“Where's Adrian?”
Silence.
Then Victoria whispered:
“Ask your wife.”
I froze.
“What?”
Victoria laughed softly.
“Ask Emily what she remembers about the night your son was born.”
The call ended.
Daniel looked at me.
I couldn't breathe.
Because suddenly...
I remembered something.
Something I had buried beneath three months of grief.
A man's hand.
A silver ring.
And a voice whispering beside my hospital bed:
“Your husband will never see this child.”
I looked at Daniel.
“I remember.”
“What?”
I whispered:
“The night our son was born…”
My eyes filled with terror.
“There was another man in the room.”
Daniel's face went pale.
“What did he look like?”
I stared at him.
Then at the baby.
And whispered:
May you like
“He had your face.”
Adrian had been there from the beginning.
