## CHAPTER 5 ### The Second Daniel Hart
No one spoke.
Daniel took Rafael’s phone and examined the photograph.
The man tied beside Vivian looked exactly like him.
Not similar.
Not a stranger with the same hair and build.
The same scar crossed his left eyebrow. The same slight bend marked the bridge of his nose. Even the lines beside his mouth matched.
My brother enlarged the image until the pixels blurred.
“That’s not possible,” Rafael said.
Daniel’s expression revealed nothing.
I watched him.
“You know who he is.”
“No.”
“You’re lying.”
He placed the phone on the table.
“I’ve never seen him.”
“Then why aren’t you surprised?”
“I am surprised.”
“No. Rafael was surprised. Camila looked terrified. You look like a man seeing something he expected eventually.”
Detective Moreno asked Daniel to step away from the phone.
“Mr. Hart, do you have a twin?”
“No.”
“Were you adopted?”
“No.”
“Any cousins who resemble you?”
“Not that closely.”
Camila was staring at him with a strange intensity.
“Take off your jacket.”
Daniel looked at her.
“What?”
“Your jacket. Remove it.”
He did not move.
Camila stood.
“There was a mark on Elias Ward’s body. The medical examiner dismissed it as burn damage, but I saw photographs before Arturo destroyed the file.”
“What kind of mark?”
“A crescent-shaped birthmark beneath the right shoulder blade.”
Daniel’s face hardened.
“Take off the jacket,” Rafael said.
My brother’s gaze moved toward me.
Then he removed his jacket and unbuttoned his shirt.
A pale crescent birthmark curved beneath his right shoulder blade.
Camila sat down again.
“That mark was on the body we buried.”
A chill passed through me.
“That doesn’t make sense,” I said. “Daniel’s body wasn’t in the car.”
“So we believed,” Camila replied.
Daniel refastened his shirt.
“The body was Elias.”
“Elias had no birthmark,” Camila said. “I saw him at the estate before the accident. He had worked there for months under a false name.”
Daniel turned toward her.
“He worked at the Valdés estate?”
“As a driver.”
My memories of Daniel’s funeral returned in fragments.
A closed coffin.
Our mother gripping my hand.
The medical examiner explaining that dental records and personal effects confirmed identity.
Dental records could be falsified.
Watches could be planted.
But the birthmark?
“Tell us the truth,” I said.
Daniel’s voice remained calm.
“I am telling you what I know.”
“What happened after the canyon?”
“I went to a safe house.”
“Were you injured?”
“Yes.”
“How badly?”
“Concussion. Broken ribs. Cuts.”
“Did you lose your memory?”
“For several days.”
I saw the answer hidden inside that detail.
“You don’t remember everything.”
“No.”
“How long is missing?”
“Approximately forty-eight hours.”
Camila whispered something in Spanish.
Rafael turned toward her.
“What?”
She repeated it in English.
“One son for another.”
Detective Moreno’s phone rang. She stepped into the hallway.
The rest of us remained trapped with the photograph.
I looked at Daniel.
“Do you remember being born?”
A bitter smile touched his mouth.
“No one remembers being born.”
“You know what I mean. Childhood. Our house. Mom.”
“Of course.”
“What is the first thing you remember?”
His expression changed.
“The lake.”
My breath stopped.
When we were children, our parents owned a small cabin near Lake Arrowhead. Daniel taught me to swim there when I was five.
“You pushed me off the dock,” I said.
“You were wearing a yellow life jacket.”
“You jumped in before I hit the water.”
“You screamed anyway.”
Only my brother could know that.
Unless someone had studied our lives.
“Daniel is Daniel,” I said.
Camila looked at the photograph.
“Then who is the man in the nursery?”
Rafael’s phone rang.
Arturo.
This time Daniel answered.
“What do you want?”
Arturo sounded amused.
“Which one are you?”
“The one who will bury you.”
“You have always been dramatic.”
“Release Vivian.”
“You don’t care about Vivian.”
“I care about keeping witnesses alive.”
Arturo sighed.
“You were easier to manage before you remembered your name.”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
I noticed.
“What does that mean?” I asked loudly.
Arturo heard me.
“Elena. I’m relieved the baby survived.”
“You tried to kill me.”
“No. If I wanted you dead, you would be dead.”
“You drugged me.”
“I ensured your husband would be prepared to protect the company.”
“By declaring me unstable?”
“By documenting reality.”
Rafael took the phone.
“You’re finished.”
“On the contrary. By dawn, Valdés Group will announce that Elena suffered a pregnancy-related psychiatric episode and attacked Vivian Price on the terrace.”
“You have two hundred witnesses.”
“I have two hundred guests who saw confusion, darkness and panic. Several will remember Elena arguing with Vivian.”
“I never argued with her.”
“Memories are flexible.”
Detective Moreno returned.
Her face warned us something had gone wrong.
“The estate security footage has been uploaded to multiple news outlets,” she said.
A television mounted in the corner switched to breaking coverage.
Video from the party appeared.
The image showed me standing beside Vivian on the terrace. There was no sound. Vivian leaned close as though saying something. I turned sharply and reached toward her.
Then the lights went out.
When they returned, Vivian was gone and I was falling.
The footage cut to an earlier moment from inside the ballroom.
I appeared unsteady. Dr. Sloane offered me water. I pushed the glass away and pointed angrily toward Camila.
The clip was edited.
But it looked believable.
A headline appeared beneath it.
VALDÉS HEIRESS HOSPITALIZED AFTER REPORTED BREAKDOWN.
My chest tightened.
Rafael swore.
Arturo’s voice continued through the phone.
“The world has already chosen the version it prefers.”
“You manufactured that footage,” Rafael said.
“I preserved the company.”
“You attacked my wife.”
“You married her for the same reason.”
Rafael’s face went white.
I looked at him.
“What does he mean?”
“Elena—”
Arturo laughed.
“Did he not tell you about the contract?”
“What contract?”
“The one he signed three days before your first date.”
Rafael closed his eyes.
I felt something inside me break.
“Send it,” I said.
Arturo did.
A document appeared on Rafael’s phone.
It was an agreement between Rafael Valdés and Arturo Valdés.
Rafael would court and marry Elena Hart. In exchange, Arturo would transfer twelve percent of Valdés Group to Rafael and forgive the debts attached to Bianca’s businesses.
The agreement included a deadline.
Eighteen months.
Rafael had proposed after fourteen.
My husband’s signature appeared on the final page.
I handed the phone back to him.
“You said only the introduction was planned.”
“It was.”
“Your signature is there.”
“I signed it, but I never took the shares.”
“You still married me.”
“Because I loved you.”
“You lied every day for five years.”
“I was going to tell you.”
“When? After my birthday? After you controlled the trust?”
“No.”
Daniel moved beside my bed.
Rafael looked at him.
“Stay out of this.”
“She is my sister.”
“And where were you while I was loving her?”
“Enough!” I shouted.
A sharp pain crossed my abdomen.
The fetal monitor alarmed.
Dr. Chen and two nurses rushed in.
Everyone was forced into the hallway.
The bleeding had increased.
Lucia’s heart rate dropped, recovered and dropped again.
Dr. Chen told me we might not be able to wait much longer.
As the surgical team prepared, I stared at the contract on the phone.
Every promise Rafael had made seemed infected by it.
The beach where he proposed.
The tiny apartment we rented before moving into the estate.
The way he cried when we heard Lucia’s heartbeat for the first time.
Had any of it been mine?
A nurse removed my jewelry.
When she took off my wedding ring, I did not ask for it back.
Outside the room, voices rose.
Daniel was arguing with Detective Moreno.
Then a gunshot echoed from somewhere below us.
The hospital lights went dark.
Emergency lights flashed red.
A voice came through the intercom.
“Security alert. Maternity floor lockdown.”
Dr. Chen pulled the curtain around my bed.
“Do not move.”
The door opened.
A man in surgical scrubs entered wearing a mask.
He carried a clear infant transport carrier.
The nurses assumed he belonged to the neonatal team.
Then I saw the tattoo on his wrist.
The Valdés family crest.
He locked the door behind him.
“You’re coming with me,” he said.
A second contraction bent me nearly in half.
The man moved toward my bed.
Before he reached me, the ventilation grate above the bathroom fell open.
Another man dropped into the room.
He landed silently, lifted his head and revealed the same green eyes as Daniel.
The man from Arturo’s photograph.
He struck the fake surgeon before anyone could scream.
Then he looked at me.
“Elena,” he said.
His voice was identical to my brother’s.
May you like
“Daniel is not your brother.”
---
