Chapter 19 - The Other Son
Lucas took the photograph directly to Agent Sloan.
The boy stood beside his father in front of a summer house. He wore a striped shirt and held a wooden airplane. His face was partly turned away, but the scar on his right hand was clear.
Lucas recognized the scar because he had one too. His father had told him it was a family mark, though he had never explained what that meant.
“Could this be a relative?” Sloan asked.
“Maybe.”
“Do you recognize the house?”
Lucas studied the background. “It looks like the property in Maine. My father said he sold it before I was born.”
The photograph was examined for age, paper type, and signs of alteration. The image appeared genuine. The writing on the back was recent.
Sloan asked the investigators to trace the source of the package. The front desk volunteer remembered that a delivery driver had dropped it off, but the driver had not required a signature.
Lucas called Sofia.
She answered after several rings.
“Did your father have another son?” he asked.
Silence.
“Sofia?”
“Yes,” she said finally.
Lucas closed his eyes.
“Who?”
“His name was Anthony. He was born before you.”
“Where is he?”
“I don't know.”
“Did you know about him when I was growing up?”
“Yes.”
Lucas felt the old anger return. “Everyone knew something except me.”
“Your father said Anthony's mother wanted no contact with the family. He provided financial support, but he kept the arrangement private.”
“Was Anthony involved in the business?”
“No. He was a child when I last saw him.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because your father ordered us not to. He said it would complicate the succession.”
Lucas looked at the photograph again.
His father had chosen him because he believed Lucas would obey. He had hidden another son because that son did not fit the plan.
“Do you know his mother's name?”
“Margaret Ellis. She lived in Maine.”
Sloan searched the name. A Margaret Ellis had died three years earlier. Her obituary listed one son, Anthony Ellis, who worked as a marine engineer and lived in Portland.
The investigators contacted him through counsel.
Anthony agreed to meet Lucas, but he made one condition: the meeting would be private and would not involve the family business.
Lucas accepted.
They met in a small restaurant near the harbor. Anthony arrived wearing a weathered jacket and carrying no briefcase. He looked to be in his early thirties.
“Mr. Moretti,” he said.
“Lucas is fine.”
Anthony sat down. “I don't know what you want from me.”
“Nothing. I wanted to understand why someone sent me your photograph.”
Anthony looked at the image. “I didn't send it.”
“Do you know who did?”
“No.”
Lucas waited.
Anthony explained that his mother had told him his father was wealthy but dangerous. He had received support as a child, but he had never met the man. When he was twenty, he received a letter offering him a place in the family business. He refused.
“Why?”
“Because I didn't want to become someone else's project.”
Lucas understood more than he wanted to.
“Did you know about the warehouse attack?”
Anthony shook his head. “I learned about it in the news. I didn't know your family personally.”
“Did anyone contact you afterward?”
“A man named Vale called once. He said my father wanted me to help settle an estate matter. I told him to contact a lawyer.”
“Did he threaten you?”
“No. But he asked whether I knew where my father kept a set of private records.”
“Which records?”
“I don't know. He said they concerned the family succession.”
Anthony reached into his jacket and took out a folded letter. It was written by his mother.
She had kept it for years, intending to give it to him when he was ready. In it, she explained that Lucas's father had promised to acknowledge Anthony publicly after the family business was stable. The promise never happened. She believed the father wanted Anthony hidden because he feared the older son would challenge the succession plan.
At the bottom, she had written: If you ever meet Lucas, do not blame him for what his father did. He was a child too.
Lucas read the sentence twice.
Anthony watched him.
“I don't want your money,” he said. “I don't want a place in the company. I just want to know why people keep dragging me into something I never chose.”
Lucas folded the letter carefully.
“I can't answer for my father. But I can make sure no one uses your name or records without your consent.”
Anthony nodded.
They spoke for another half hour. There was no instant bond, no embrace, and no promise to become brothers. There was only a conversation between two men whose lives had been shaped by the same absent father in different ways.
When Lucas returned home, he told Isabella.
“Are you going to see him again?” she asked.
“If he wants to.”
“And if he doesn't?”
“Then I respect that.”
Isabella smiled faintly.
The next day, Anthony sent a message. He had found a small box among his mother's belongings. It contained a copy of a document with Lucas's father's signature.
The document was titled SUCCESSION CONTINGENCY—SECOND BENEFICIARY.
Anthony had not opened the sealed pages.
He asked whether Lucas wanted to see them.
Lucas stared at the message.
The family secret had not ended with the discovery of another son.
It had led to another plan.
Sloan asked Lucas not to contact Anthony directly until the investigators had checked whether the photograph was part of a pressure campaign. Lucas agreed, though he found the delay difficult. He had spent enough of his life waiting for family truths to arrive through strangers.
The investigators confirmed that the image was genuine. The boy's identity was not included in any official family record, but the photographer's studio had kept a negative ledger. The date matched a period when Lucas's father had been spending weekends at the Maine property.
Sofia eventually confirmed the name.
“Anthony Ellis,” she said over a recorded call. “Your father had a relationship with his mother before he married your mother. He supported the child privately.”
“Did my mother know?”
“I believe she did.”
Lucas felt the room tighten around him. “And you let me believe I was an only child.”
“Your father wanted it kept quiet.”
“That's not an answer.”
“No,” Sofia said. “It's the reason I used.”
Lucas ended the call before anger could turn into words he would regret.
He asked Martin Hale, his independent attorney, to locate Anthony through public records and make contact without disclosing private family information. Martin found an obituary for Margaret Ellis and a professional listing for a marine engineer in Portland.
Anthony agreed to a meeting after receiving a letter from Martin. He made clear that he did not want publicity, money, or a role in the business.
Lucas respected the conditions.
Before the meeting, Isabella asked what he hoped to gain.
“I don't know,” he admitted. “Maybe an answer. Maybe to see whether he knows something about our father.”
“Then don't make him responsible for giving you one.”
Lucas nodded.
The restaurant near the harbor was quiet when Anthony arrived. He studied Lucas for a long moment before sitting down.
“I've seen your face in the news,” Anthony said. “I never thought we'd meet.”
“Neither did I.”
Anthony placed both hands around his coffee cup. “My mother told me my father had another family. She didn't tell me much else.”
Lucas did not push. He understood that the man across from him had been given his own version of a family secret, and he had no obligation to surrender it all in one conversation.
They began with ordinary questions: where Anthony worked, whether he liked the coast, and how long he had lived in Portland. Only after half an hour did Anthony mention the letter from his mother.
He took it from his jacket and set it between them.
“There's something you should read.”
Lucas unfolded the page carefully.
Before they parted, Anthony asked Lucas whether he hated their father.
Lucas thought for a long moment.
“I hate what he did. I don't know how to separate that from the man I remember.”
Anthony nodded. “I don't remember him at all. Maybe that's easier.”
“Maybe. But you lost something too.”
Anthony looked out toward the harbor. “I lost the chance to decide what I wanted from him. You had the chance, but he made it conditional.”
Lucas realized they had both inherited different forms of absence.
Neither tried to comfort the other. They simply sat with the truth for a few minutes, then agreed that any future contact would be their choice, not an obligation created by a document.
May you like
That was enough for a first meeting.
Lucas left the restaurant with no promise that Anthony would become part of his life. He felt unexpectedly peaceful about that. A relationship that began with a choice was worth more than one imposed by inheritance.
