Chapter 5 A NEW BEGINNING

CHAPTER FIVE

JASMINE'S POV

Five years later, my name lit up gallery walls across the UK. Jasmine Castillo was a celebrated artist, known for painting emotions that bled straight from canvas to the soul.

My exhibitions sold out months in advance, critics praised my "haunting vulnerability," and my story was hailed as one of resilience and rebirth. I smiled for cameras, laughed during interviews, and posed gracefully at galas.

But behind closed doors, when the lights dimmed and the applause faded, the wounds still whispered. No matter how far I'd come, some parts of me never stopped bleeding.

In my London studio, my four-year-old daughter, Mia, twirled between canvases with wild giggles, her paint-smeared hands were clapping with glee.

"Mummy, look! I made a rainbow for you!" she beamed. I crouched beside her, brushing a curl from her cheek and kissing her forehead. "It's perfect, my love. Just like you." I remarked

Her smile was wide and innocent, but her eyes, those big, brown eyes were Lorenzo's. Sometimes, looking at her made my heart ache with a longing I'd buried deep, a reminder of the past that still breathed beneath the surface.

The world believed she was Antonio's child. And he never corrected them. Antonio had been my rock, never asking for more than I could give.

He loved Mia as his own and had protected us fiercely from the gossips and the speculations.

"If the world needs a name, let them use mine," he'd once said, holding Mia as she slept. "But we both know who she is. And that's enough." I had nodded then, too exhausted to explain, too grateful to argue.

But on the nights when silence wrapped tightly around me, I still found myself staring out the window, wondering if Vincenzo ever thought about the child he never knew about the truth I was too shattered to fight for.

And even now, as I painted a new life with steady hands, my heart still bore the brush strokes of a love that turned to ashes.

VINCENZO

The boardroom fell into an eerie silence as the final figures were displayed on the screen, numbers that screamed success, power and control.

The Moretti Global had tripled in size over the past five years, branching into tech, real estate, and renewable energy. The world called me a visionary. "But then, was I" I asked myself.

"How then did I not notice this side of Jasmine earlier", I thought to myself as I sat coldly at the executive table in the boardroom.

Outside the glass doors, Phones buzzed, assistants hovered, as they were shuffling papers, and casting anxious glances at the clock.

Inside, a dozen suits sat stiffly around the boardroom table, eyes locked on the contracts they'd laid out like sacrifices. I didn't sit. Didn't need to.

A flick of my hand, and the meeting ended. No words, just silence and the rustle of paper as they scrambled to pack up.

I crossed to the window. From the top floor, the city sprawled beneath me steel, glass and relentless motion. My name moved markets. My signature turned startups into giants.

But none of it reached me. Not really. The skyline was beautiful. The emptiness behind it, worse.

"Sir, the Paris deal has been finalized. They want a dinner to celebrate," Carlo, my assistant, said from behind me.

"Tell them I'm unavailable," I replied coldly.

"But..."

"I said no," I snapped, my voice sharp and clipped. "Let them toast without me." I mumbled.

Once he left, the silence returned like an old friend, heavy and suffocating. I poured myself a glass of whiskey and sank into the leather chair behind my desk.

Her name haunted me more, now than ever. Jasmine. Every time I saw a painting, every time a reporter mentioned her success, it gutted me. The DNA test, the accusations, the divorce, I had thought I was right.

I thought I was protecting myself from betrayal. But the look in her eyes that night... the way her voice cracked when she begged me to listen... I could never erase it.

I picked up the photo I kept hidden in my drawer, the one of Lorenzo as a baby in her arms. My hands trembled. "I was wrong," I whispered to the silence. "Jeez, I was so wrong."

The empire I'd built felt meaningless without the two people I cast away. I wanted to call her, to apologize, to ask if there was even a sliver of her heart still open to me. But what right did I have, after all this time, after all the damage... was it too late to make things right.

My fingers hovered over the phone, the screen glowing like a quiet promise I didn't deserve. Memories pressed in, her laughter, the warmth of our son's tiny hand in mine, the way their absence now echoed through every corner of this glass-and-steel kingdom.

I had traded love for pride, and the cost was written in every lonely night and hollow victory since. Still, hope stirred fragile and foolish. Maybe, it wasn't too late to try.

I was reviewing documents when a knock came at the door. Carlo stepped in, holding a small brown envelope.

"Sir," he said carefully, "this just arrived. No return address."

I frowned. "Another anonymous delivery?"

He nodded. "Same style as the last one. Thought you'd want to see it immediately."

I took the envelope and weighed it in my hands. It was light. Just paper inside.

"Thanks. Leave it with me."

He hesitated. "Of course, sir." Then he turned and left.

I opened the envelope and pulled out a single photo. It was grainy, clearly from a security camera. But my heart skipped a beat. I knew that face.

My voice caught. "It's him..."

He's older, he's gaunt. But unmistakably my brother.

After all these years... he was alive.

My throat went dry. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. "After all these years, could he really have survived. And if so... why hadn't he come home" I thought to myself.

I knew then what I had to do. As much as it burned, as much as guilt still wrapped around my chest like iron chains, I had to call her Jasmine.

She was the only one who might know something, anything. With trembling fingers, I dialed her number, a string of digits I never truly forgot.

"Hello..." as her voice came through the line, I nearly lost my nerve. Soft, cautious, and distant... but still her.

"Jasmine," I said, my voice catching.

There was a pause, like the air between us thickened. Then, a stunned breath. "Vincenzo" she asked.

"Yes, it's me. I confirmed. I need to see you," I said, swallowing hard. "It's about Rafael. I have reasons to believe he's still alive." I confessed.

The silence that followed was deafening. Then, her voice, flat and laced with something bitter. "And why would you call me about it" she asked unconcerned.

I stood up, went to face the floor-to-ceiling window behind my chair, as I pressed my hand on my forehead. "Because I think you might know something. You were there that night. You saw things I didn't see. Jasmine... I need your help to find him." I begged although not sure maybe she'll give in to my plea.I gripped the phone tighter, as I began to pace the length of my office.

There was a long pause on the other end, just static and her soft breathing. Then her voice came through, quiet and clipped. "You think I haven't gone over that night a thousand times in my head" she said. "I saw more than I wanted to, Vincenzo. But digging that up again... it's not easy."

I stayed silent, waiting.

"I don't know if I can help," she added, her voice barely above a whisper and the call ended.

"I'll have to try my luck somewhere else" I said to myself as I searched for the next number to call on my phone.

I stared at the contact on my phone for a long time before finally pressing the call button. Mira. If anyone knew where Jasmine was, it would be her. The line rang a few times before she answered, her voice as sharp and cold as I remembered.

"What do you want, Vincenzo" she asked, no pleasantries, just raw tension.

"I need to find Jasmine," I said, cutting to the point. "It's about Rafael. There's a chance he's still alive, and I believe Jasmine may hold the key to finding him."

She scoffed. "Now you care, after what you did to her, after you threw her out in the dead of night and vanished from her life"

"I made mistakes," I admitted, the words bitter in my mouth. "But I'm not doing this for me. Rafael is our brother, our family. If you know anything, Mira, please, help me." I begged

"No. I'm not helping you. Jasmine finally found peace, and I won't let you drag her back into your storm." Then she hung up. Just like that.

But I didn't stop. I couldn't. If Mira wouldn't help, then I'd find Jasmine myself. I put my team to work, searching every corner, every clue until a lead pointed us to the United Kingdom.

My heart pounded at the thought, five years of silence, pain and distance and now I was crossing oceans for the woman I lost... and the brother I might still save.