"Please give our thanks to the Count, Don Alejandro," Carlito said as he took his goodbye from his friend the morning after Cordoba's execution.

"I will. It's a shame you're leaving so early, though. I am sure he would have like to say goodbye to you in person." The elderly caballero replied as his three friends mounted their horses.

"Indeed! He was a very gracious host. It's a shame we must leave this early." Juan replied.

"If we don't hurry, though, that ship in Santa Barbara will leave without us!" Pablo uttered. "Be well, Don Alejandro!"

"I hope we'll see each other again, my friends!"

"God willing!" Carlos told him, speaking for the three of them.

"And if your son turns out to be alive, as the lovely Senorita Escalante believes, let us know, so that we might also rejoice with you!" Pablo added.

"I will do so, my friend! I will surely do so! If my Diego ever find his way home…" The elderly caballero promised, waving goodbye to the three men as they set towards Santa Barbara.

He remained watching them until they disappeared from view, then returned to the house. Heading for the terrace, where his coffee was getting cold, he finished it, then watched the sunrise, wondering whether his son was also watching it from wherever he was; somewhere close, he hoped.

It was some ten minutes later, when horse hoofs attracted his attention. Wondering who was arriving at that time, he stood up and took some steps towards the front courtyard. The main door resounded next, and he considered heading inside when he noticed a servant taking a horse to the stables. Looking better, he recognized Esperanza. The mare had once been his son's favorite. Now, she was the Count's.

Wondering for a moment about that coincidence, he signed for the stable hand. "Is the Count awake, Enrique?" He asked the man.

"He just returned home, Patron."

"Oh? From where?"

"I do not know, Don Alejandro. But I think he was away all night. He looks quite tired."

Hardly had the servant said those words that music started being heard from the front of the house. Curious, the elderly caballero guided his steps that way and, as he neared the sala where the piano was, he recognized the melody. It was a sonata his wife once taught his son; one he hadn't heard in years, since Diego had gone to Spain.

The Count was playing it, and Don Alejandro remained at the entrance to the room, simply listening, not even realizing a tear fell from his right eye as he did.

"My son used to play that piece," he remarked when the music stopped.

The younger man didn't say anything for a while. "My mother taught it to me," he eventually replied.

Don Alexandro took a few steps into the room, his eyes resting on a small portrait of his dead wife. He had once put it on one of the corner tables and the Count never said anything about it being there. "It reminds me of my beautiful Felicidad," the elderly caballero said, taking the miniature in his hands, and looking at it.

There was again silence. "She used to love this sonata," the younger man finally said.

The elderly don nodded. "Before she died, she used to play it to us every day…"

"So that, after she was gone, we'd play it, and remember she is always with us, in our hearts."

"Yes…" Don Alejandro said with a subtle nod, but it took him a moment to realize that something was strange about that conversation. It took him a while longer to make sense of that particular strangeness. As he did, more tears started falling from his eyes. "Son?" He uttered slowly, almost in a hushed tone, for he seemed unable to find his voice. Nor was he able to turn around, for fear that he was wrong.

"I've been meaning to tell you for quite a while now, but it wasn't the time yet. Not until I was certain I'd prevail. Not until I was sure those who wanted to harm our family could no longer do so." The same voice replied.

The don nodded at that, but said nothing, just stood there baffled, looking at the wall in front of him.

"Forgive me for deceiving you, Father! Forgive me for pretending, during all this time, that I was a different man than I truly am," the young man continued.

At that, the elderly don turned and, at seeing his son's face without the fake beard and wig, he let out a strange sound – some sort of crossing between a whine of pain and a shout of joy – and hurried to embrace him.

A few minutes later, as Don Alejandro took a step back, just glad to look at his boy's handsome face, he inwardly wondered how come he couldn't recognize him. It seemed so obvious now that the Count and Diego were one and the same. But then, it hit him. His son had been the happiest young man he had ever known: an optimist through and through. Yet the Count had always had a strange sort of sadness in his eyes, like the shadow of a pain he could not let go of. It had not been the false beard and the wig to hide the young man from his father, but his eyes.

"I had thought you dead…"

"I was, in a way. Ignacio and Gilberto had buried me in Chateau D'If, and never expected I would find my way out of there."

"Chateau D'If?" The don asked in horror. "De Soto and Risendo did that?"

"Yes, Father. Almost five years I have spent there."

"Five years in that wretched place? It's a miracle you are still sane!"

"Sane… Yes, though there were moments when folly seemed like a much more appealing option than sanity."

"Tell me, Son! Tell me everything!"

"I will. But, first... Fariz?" Diego called. The boy came running, but stopped in place as he saw that the caballero was no longer wearing his disguise. "I know you've been worried about Felipe," the young man told his father. "And I know Fariz doesn't look like the boy you raised. His disguise is even better than my own, in a way. But he is Felipe."

"Felipe? Our Felipe?" the don asked, glancing in confusion between his son and the teenager.

Diego just nodded, and Felipe did the same, fixing his eyes on the floor.

"Felipe, is that really you? But how is it you can hear?" Don Alejandro asked as he embraced him, as well.

"He recovered his hearing a few years back, but kept it a secret. He had overheard a conversation between Maria and one of the maids, and feared you might treat him differently if you knew." Diego explained.

"Oh, my boy! Don't you know how much I care about you, Felipe?" the don asked as he also embraced the teenager. "All this time, I had you both here, with me, and I had no idea…"

"As I said, it was quite deliberate. I couldn't tell you yet, Father."

"Because of De Soto and Risendo. Yes… I always knew those men were evil… Now, at least, one is dead and the other is about to die. It is finally over!"

"No… As it turns out, it's not that easy. There are things you do not know… Things that might make you reconsider the idea of watching Gilberto hang."

"He took you away from us… He sentenced you to rot in that hellhole, and almost caused me to lose everything… my life's work… Your inheritance…" at that, the don went silent and stared at the young man before him. "Had you not bought it all… Diego, where did you get so much money?"

"I found a treasure. A very large treasure…" His son replied honestly.

"You found a treasure?"

"Yes. One that allowed me to undo much of the harm Risendo had committed. But I will tell you everything if you just have the patience to listen…"

"Of course! Tell me! Tell me everything, Diego!"

The next couple of hours the young man spent recounting for his father all he had been through during the years they had spent apart. Felipe made sure they were not interrupted, while the elderly don listened with increasing amazement to how his son went from being a caballero, to being a prisoner, an escaped convict, a contrabandist, a treasure hunter, and then a count, all because of a chain of lies that had started years before Diego was even born.

"All of it because of that man!" Don Alejandro muttered when his son finally finished. "I did not just lose my brother because of him, but my firstborn son, and my wife, as well? I could have lost both my sons…"

"It was not only him but the woman, as well. Inez Risendo is to blame for most of it, Father."

"Yes… May they both rot in hell! But Gilberto… your brother? My son? How can you be certain?"

At that, Diego took out the letter Inez had once written, and gave it to his father. "She had the means and the opportunity to steal him. That is the written confession of what she did," he said. "The other letters Felipe found at their house yesterday give even more information and details about her plans and actions, including how she had used a young servant to take Gilberto, then murdered the poor girl."

Don Alejandro took the letter and read it as more tears fell from his eyes. "It is true, then? Gilberto is my son…" he uttered as he finished reading.

"There's more." Diego said. "Juliana's child… Is Gilberto's… Though he knows not of the pregnancy. Inez had hidden that information from him…"

"How do you know that?"

"About the child's paternity? Juliana told me the day she came here. About Gilberto not knowing… I know that from his former servant, who was, in fact, working for me."

Don Alejandro nodded, unable to mask how impressed he was with his son. Standing up from his chair, starting to pace the room. "I have a grandchild on the way…." He muttered.

"Yes. Just as you have a daughter-in-law living under this roof. That she is not married to your son matters not. I will make sure she assumed her rightful place in this house…"

Don Alejandro nodded with a smile, then shook his head. "Good God!" He exclaimed. "I have hated that man from the moment I first saw him… But… If he is my son…" he suddenly sat down. "What should we do, Diego? I don't know if I should hate him for all the harm he caused you… us… or… love him… If I should want to see him punished… or forgiven…"

"I've also thought a lot about that since finding out… I despise him, Father. No man has ever done more harm to me than him. Or so I had thought. Because, in truth, behind every one of his actions was that woman, Inez. She is the truly guilty one. Not Gilberto… She. Her actions led to my incarceration; her actions led to my mother's death; her actions deprived me of a brother and you of one of your sons. Were he to die today, it would also be as a result of her actions. Her vindictive drive to hurt us, manifesting even beyond her grave."

"We should not let her hurt us anymore. We can't let her win." Don Alejandro agreed.

"You've spent decades apart from one of your sons. I've had you for most of that time. I had Mother. He did not. I may despise him for what he did to me… to us. But I also feel sorry for him. Had we grown up together, things might have been very different. He might have been different."

Don Alejandro nodded. "Had you grown up together… He was stolen. He was raised to hate us, to feel unloved, and unwanted. My son… God help me, Diego, but I don't want to see him dead! Nor do I know if I will ever be able to forgive him."

"Emmanuel – you know him as Rafael Montoya, but is, in fact, my best friend and accomplice, Emmanuel Dos Santos –"

Don Alejandro shook his head. "Is everyone here wearing a disguise?" He wondered.

"Just us… Well, Emmanuel suggested that there's another option… Between death and forgiveness…"

"What other option?"

"There must be consequences for his actions, Father. He must pay. But not necessarily with his life." Diego replied.