Chapter 3 - THE SECOND MASKDante took a slow, deliberate breath. He reached up to his neck, slowly unbuttoning his white silk collar, exposing his collarbone.

"You want to know if I am the real Dante DeMarco?" he asked softly.

"Answer me," I demanded, holding my breath.

Dante reached into his vest pocket, pulled out a small silver key, and unlocked a mahogany box sitting on his writing desk. He pulled out a yellowed birth certificate and a sealed medical file, sliding them across the table toward me.

"The real Dante DeMarco—my older brother—died of leukemia when he was seven years old," Dante confessed quietly.

I stumbled back a step, staring at the papers on the desk.

"My name is Arthur," he continued, his voice steady despite the weight of the confession. "I was born eighteen months after Dante died. But my father, Lord Leopold DeMarco, refused to let the public or our business rivals know that his firstborn heir had passed. He buried Dante in secret beneath the chapel, changed my birth records, and forced me to live under my dead brother's name my entire life."

I sank into a velvet armchair, staring at the handsome, tragic man standing before me.

Identity Number One: My fake father, Julian Cross.

Identity Number Two: The dead body double in the basement, hired to die in Dante's place.

Identity Number Three: My own husband, 'Dante,' who was actually a younger brother named Arthur living as a ghost.

Three faked identities uncovered in less than four hours.

"So everyone in this castle is playing a part in a corporate masquerade," I murmured, staring down at my gold wedding band.

"We live in a world where weakness means extinction, Sofía," Arthur—the man I had married as Dante—explained softly, crouching down beside my chair. "My father built an empire on total control. If the world knew his heir was a second-born replacement, or that your father was a paid actor, our family's enemies would have dismantled both our estates years ago."

He reached out, gently taking my hand. His touch felt real, warm, and entirely human amidst the mountain of lies surrounding us.

"I didn't choose to be named Dante," he whispered, looking into my eyes with absolute sincerity. "But I chose to marry you, Sofía. Not because of the trust fund, not because of my mother's schemes. I fell in love with you three years ago at the spring gala, before any of these contracts were drafted."

I looked at his face—the sharp jaw, the dark, piercing eyes, the small scar on his lip from a childhood fence fall.

"Arthur," I whispered, testing his real name on my tongue for the first time.

A soft, sad smile touched his lips. "It's been twenty years since anyone called me that."

Before we could speak further, three loud, rhythmic knocks echoed against the heavy bedroom door.

"Dante! Arthur!" a panicked voice called from the hallway. It was Marcus, the castle's chief security director. "We have a massive situation in the east wing!"

Arthur immediately stood up, his relaxed posture instantly vanishing as he unlocked the heavy oak door. "What happened, Marcus?"

Marcus stood in the hallway, his face ghostly pale, sweating profusely despite the evening chill.

"The board of directors just arrived early," Marcus reported breathlessly. "And... Lord Leopold DeMarco has just walked into the main hall."

I stood up from my chair in complete shock.

Leopold DeMarco—Dante's father—had died in a private helicopter crash four years ago in the Swiss Alps. His funeral had been broadcast live across national news outlets.

Arthur froze in the doorway, his jaw clenching hard as he looked at Marcus.

"My father is dead, Marcus," Arthur said coldly.

"He's downstairs right now, sir," Marcus stuttered, pulling out a tablet screen showing a live security feed of the grand ballroom below. "He's walking, talking, and standing beside your mother."

I walked over to Arthur's side, peering at the tablet screen.

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Standing in the center of the ballroom beneath the crystal chandeliers was an elderly man with silver hair, wearing a dark tuxedo, holding a glass of champagne. Standing on his arm was Eleanor DeMarco, smiling radiantly as she introduced him to the arriving board members.

Identity Number Four: The patriarch who had supposedly died four years ago was standing downstairs, alive and breathing.