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The Ghost glances at me, his eyes narrowing. "Yes, I did," he confirms, still clutching the wheel tightly.
"But... how?" I ask, my heart pounding in my chest. "My mother had the same watch. It was her most prized possession."
His grip on the wheel falters for a moment, and he looks over at me with an unreadable expression. "It seems we have more in common than we thought, Dario."
No. No. This isn’t making any sense.
The Ghost sighs, taking a deep breath before speaking. "My name... it's not just the Ghost. It's Leonardo.”
And then, he removes his scarf and the hoodie of his cape. I hear Jasmine suck in a deep breath and let low a whisper. “You two … you look the same almost,” she whispers.
My eyes, my chin, my cheekbones. His eyes, his chin, his cheekbones.
I stare at him, trying to process this impossible revelation. Leonardo.
The words from the pages of my mother’s diary come reeling back at me. She wrote about Leonardo. She wrote that my father found out about Leonardo, just days before her death.
The coincidence, it’s too much. I would be a fool to just believe this man, who I’ve never heard of before. If I had a brother, I would have known, right?
“Your father –” I try asking.
“Is someone else,” he whispers.
“You’re trying to tell me you’re my brother?” I inquire, for clarity.
“I’m telling you I’m your brother.”
Rage pours through me. Rage at this situation. Rage at those who kept secrets from me. Rage for the relationships I’ve been denied my whole life, including with my brother. And this rage comes out in two words.
“Prove it.”
Leonardo pulls out a small, silver locket from his pocket, and I can't help but note the similarity to the one our mother used to wear. He opens it carefully, revealing a faded photograph inside. It's her – our mother – with her arms wrapped around a younger version of the man beside me.
"Mom gave this to me before she died," he explains, his voice thick with emotion. "She wanted me to remember her, and to know that she loved me."
Jasmine gasps softly, tears welling up in her eyes as she takes in the image. My heart clenches at the sight, and I force myself to look away. The revelation that Leonardo is my brother is still too raw, too fresh to fully process.
"Your father had her killed," Leonardo continues, his voice steady despite the weight of his words. "He found out about her affair and couldn't bear the thought of her having a child with another man. He made sure she paid the price for her betrayal."
I grip the steering wheel tightly, knuckles turning white as my world tilts on its axis. My father, the man who raised me, who taught me right from wrong, was responsible for our mother's death. The thought is almost too much to bear, and I struggle to keep my emotions in check.
“You’re lying,” I whisper. My father used to love my mother. Didn’t he? I remember how he used to ask her to sing for him at dinner sometimes. How he used to buy her so many presents. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. He’s a man capable of unimaginable evil, but to kill his own wife?
“Your father never knew of my existence, until he learned of it. When he learned of it, he refused to let her out unchaperoned. To meet her, I had started visiting our mother at your compound in the middle of the night. One night, I had just crawled out of the window when he entered. It was June 12th. I remember it clearly –”
“June 12th,” I whisper, remembering that night clearly. “Mother was injured while she ran away.”
“That’s the password for Frank’s locker,” Jasmine whispers.
“She was injured before your father killed her,” Leonardo explains.
The date swarms through my head. Earlier, when the ghost suggested it as the password we would need to unlock secrets, I thought June 12th was just a coincidence. But now, it’s all coming together.
This is far too elaborate, detailed, to be a lie.
Leonardo looks just like me.
My mother spoke of him in her diaries.
