Chapter 5 - THE FORGERY
Thomas went to slam the door, but Gabriel shoved his heavy leather boot into the jamb.
“I didn't sign anything!” Gabriel shouted, forcing the door open and stepping into the cramped, drafty room. “Dad, look at me! I spent fifteen years thinking you abandoned me because my mother and Vera lied! I never signed a restraining order!”
Thomas stumbled back, gripping the edge of a cheap folding table that served as his only furniture. He looked wildly at Gabriel, then at Vera, who stood weeping in the hallway, and finally at me.
“You didn't?” Thomas breathed, his hands shaking as he lowered the legal document.
I stepped into the room. As a housemaid, I had spent the last nineteen months managing the Romano estate’s incoming mail, signing for packages, and organizing Gabriel’s home office. I knew his handwriting better than I knew my own.
“Mr. Romano, let me see that paper,” I said gently, holding out my hand.
Thomas hesitated, then handed it to me.
I smoothed out the creased injunction. It was a formal cease-and-desist letter, ordering Thomas Romano to cease all contact with Gabriel under threat of immediate legal action. At the bottom was a heavy, slanted signature in black ink.
I felt a cold chill run down my spine.
“Gabriel,” I said, looking up. “This isn't your signature. The ‘G’ loops to the left, and the pressure is too heavy on the downstroke. You use a rolling ballpoint pen, and you always cross your ‘t’ with a slight upward tilt.”
Gabriel took the paper, staring at the ink. “If I didn't sign it... who did?”
“I know who did,” I said, my voice hardening. “I’ve seen this exact heavy, slanted handwriting on every wedding schedule and catering check for the last six months. Meredith signed this. She forged your signature five years ago.”
Thomas sank onto the edge of a sagging mattress, burying his face in his calloused hands.
“She came to the prison gates the day I was released,” Thomas whispered, his voice broken. “Arthur Vance’s daughter. She was sitting in the back of a black car. Her security handed me this paper. She rolled down the window and told me that you hated me, that you were embarrassed by me, and that if I ever tried to contact you, she would use her family’s lawyers to lock me away forever.”
Gabriel dropped to his knees in front of his father. The wealthy, composed CEO was entirely gone, replaced by a desperate, grieving son.
“Dad, I’m so sorry,” Gabriel wept, grabbing his father’s hands. “I never hated you. I waited on those steps all day for you. Why didn't you fight it? Why did you just accept it?”
Thomas looked up, tears finally spilling over his weathered cheeks. “Because she told me you were happy, Gabriel. She said you were taking over the company, building a life. What could I offer you? I was a disgraced ex-convict with nothing to my name but the clothes on my back. I thought letting you go was the only way to protect you.”
Vera stepped into the room, leaning heavily on her cane. “Thomas. It was my fault. Eleanor paid me to send you away that day. If I had just let you in...”
Thomas looked at Vera. There was no anger in his eyes, only a profound, exhausted sadness.
“I don't blame you, Vera,” Thomas said softly. “Eleanor would have fired you and ruined you. You needed to save your sister.”
Gabriel wiped his eyes and looked around the barren, freezing room.
“Why did you come back to the city now, Dad?” Gabriel asked. “Why did you break into Vera’s house on Tuesday just to slip that pawn ticket into the compass box?”
Thomas stood up slowly. He walked over to the folding table and pulled away a faded gray blanket.
Underneath sat a massive, leather-bound engineering ledger. It was battered and singed at the edges.
“Because Arthur Vance and your mother didn't just frame me for embezzlement to steal my money, Gabriel,” Thomas said, his voice turning hard and fierce. “They framed me to steal my patents for the clean-energy grid. It’s worth billions today. But Arthur Vance never got the core patent. He’s been searching for it for fifteen years.”
Gabriel stared at the ledger. “Where is it?”
Thomas opened the heavy book. The pages inside were filled with complex blueprints, but the center page was cut entirely out.
“I hid the master blueprint the night before I was arrested,” Thomas said, looking directly at his son. “I came back to the city because Meredith and Arthur are using this wedding to execute a final, hostile takeover of your company. Once you signed that marriage license tomorrow, Arthur Vance would legally own every asset with the Romano name on it.”
“How do we stop them?” Gabriel demanded. “How do we find the master patent?”
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Thomas closed the ledger.
“We can’t just go dig it up,” Thomas said gravely. “I didn't bury it in the ground. I hid the location inside a cipher. And the only key to decoding that cipher is the pearl bracelet your mother wears on her left wrist every single day.”
