Chapter 3 — Female Lawyer and Torn Will

Three days after the first meeting with the Dam family, Tue Minh received a surprise call from Dam Thanh Nha, inviting her to a small cafe in a quiet alley, away from the eyes of family members. When Tue Minh arrived, Thanh Nha was already sitting in a hidden corner, her hand twirling a cup of coffee that had never been touched, her eyes full of tension.

"Thank you for agreeing to meet me," Thanh Nha said, her voice trembling somewhat. "I know everyone in the house is thinking I'm the one who tore up the will, and I can't stand the suspicion any longer. I want to tell you the whole story, no matter how bad it makes me look."

"I'm listening," Tue Minh replied, her voice gentle but full of professional focus.

Thanh Nha took a deep breath, as if trying to muster up the courage to open her heart. "Ten years ago, I fell in love with a man that my father did not approve of — he was just an ordinary engineer, with no qualifications for our family background. My father did everything to separate us, even threatening to disown me if I continued that relationship. I chose love, left home, and did not contact my family for ten years, until hearing the news of his death."

"So what was the last conversation between you and your father before he passed away?" Tue Minh asked, trying to lead the story to the right focus that she needed to know.

"You called me for the first time in ten years," Thanh Nha replied, her eyes reddening as she remembered. "He said he wanted to see me, wanted to apologize for being too rigid in the past. When I arrived, he was much older, much weaker than I imagined. He told me that he had made a new will, and in it, he wanted to correct the mistakes he had caused to this whole family, not just to me."

"Did you say specifically what the mistake was?" Tue Minh asked, her heart beating faster as she felt she was getting closer to the important truth.

Thanh Nha shook her head. "He didn't elaborate, just said that he had been silent for too long about something related to my second brother - Quoc Viet, who died in a car accident when I was young. He said he needed to fix that before it was too late, because his conscience couldn't bear it anymore."

The name Quoc Viet made Tue Minh stunned. This was the first time she heard of the existence of a second son in the Dam family — one who had never been mentioned in any previous conversations with the surviving members.

"I've never heard anyone mention Quoc Viet," Tue Minh said, trying to keep his voice calm even though he was filled with intense curiosity. "Can you tell me more about him?"

"Mr. Viet is fifteen years older than me, so I have almost no clear memories of him," Thanh Nha replied, her voice low. "I only vaguely remember that he died in a car accident when I was five years old, and after that, the whole family almost never mentioned him again, as if his existence was completely erased from the family's collective memory. I asked my mother about him when I was young, but she just cried and told me never to mention it in front of my father."

"Do you know if he is married or has any children?" Tue Minh asked, a strong premonition was gradually forming in her mind.

Thanh Nha hesitated, trying to recall the faint memories from her childhood. "I vaguely remember a woman coming to the house, crying and begging to see my father, but he wouldn't let her in. I was too young to understand what was going on, and after that I never saw her again."

That story matched what Tue Minh suspected - maybe Quoc Viet had a marriage or relationship that was not accepted by his family, leaving behind a child that Mr. Vinh Thanh had never publicly acknowledged, until his conscience no longer allowed him to keep silent.

"I need to find out more about Viet's death," Tue Minh said, mostly to himself. "Do you know anyone who can provide more information about that accident? Police records, newspapers of the time, or anyone who witnessed it?"

"Mrs. Sau Cam certainly knows more than she's ever told," Thanh Nha replied. "She has worked for the family since long before Viet passed away, and I always felt she knew something that she never dared to say, perhaps because she was afraid of losing her job, or because she promised my father she would keep it a secret until the end."

After the conversation with Thanh Nha, Tue Minh returned to the office with his mind spinning with new hypotheses. She immediately called Duy Bach to share the information she had just collected.

"Quoc Viet," Duy Bach repeated the name, his voice a bit surprised. "I will have someone look up the car accident records from twenty-five years ago involving this person. If it is indeed Mr. Vinh Thanh's son, there must definitely be an official report somewhere in the storage system, even if it has been a long time."

"I also think there is a connection between Quoc Viet and Dam Anh Vu," Tue Minh said. "If Quoc Viet had an illegitimate child, or an unrecognized marriage, and that child grew up without knowing his true origin... that could explain why Mr. Vinh Thanh personally recruited Anh Vu to work, and why he wanted to correct the mistakes in the new will."

"That's a reasonable hypothesis," Duy Bach replied, his voice serious. "But we need specific evidence, we can't just rely on speculation. I will have a DNA test done if possible, comparing Anh Vu with the remaining biological samples of the Dam family, if any."

That afternoon, when Tue Minh was preparing to leave the office, she received another call, this time from Dam Quoc Hung himself, his voice filled with barely concealed anger.

"Miss Minh, I just heard that you're going around asking about my brother, who passed away twenty-five years ago," he said, his voice harsh. "I don't understand why a lawyer hired to handle a will would have to dig up things that happened so long ago."

"Mr. Hung, any information related to the family can be important to verifying the true content of the will," Tue Minh replied, her voice still maintaining a professional calm despite clearly sensing the hostility in his voice. "If you have any information about Mr. Quoc Viet that you would like to share, it will greatly help the investigation process."

"My brother died in an unfortunate accident, there's no mystery there," Quoc Hung replied, his voice final. "I advise you to focus on the job you were hired to do — verify the validity of the will, not reopen my family's old wounds over baseless speculation."

The call ended abruptly, leaving Tue Minh with the feeling that Quoc Hung's violent reaction only confirmed that she was on the right track — that Quoc Viet's death, even twenty-five years on, was still an open wound, a secret that someone in this family was determined to keep at all costs.

That night, while alone in the office working late, Tue Minh received an anonymous text message from an unknown phone number: "Don't dig up things that don't concern you. Some secrets should be buried forever, for the benefit of everyone, including you."

That message made Tue Minh shiver slightly, but instead of fear, a feeling of determination stronger than ever welled up in her heart. She took a screenshot of the message and immediately sent it to Duy Bach, along with a short message: "Some people are afraid I will find out the truth. That means the truth is worth finding."

Duy Bach called back immediately. "Miss Minh, I seriously ask you to be more careful," he said, his voice filled with genuine concern rather than the usual professional severity. "If someone was willing to threaten you so directly, it shows that the severity of what is being hidden is much greater than we initially imagined."

"I'll be careful," Tue Minh replied, her voice steady. "But I won't stop. There is a woman named Thanh Nha who is being unfairly suspected by her whole family, there may be a man named Dam Anh Vu who is living without knowing his true identity, and there is a truth about Quoc Viet's death twenty-five years ago waiting to be exposed. I cannot turn my back on those things just because of an anonymous threatening text message."

"I understand," Duy Bach said, his voice softened, mixed with an undisguised admiration. "But from now on, let me accompany you in every next step of your investigation. We need to work together more closely, not only for your safety, but also because we are both searching for the same truth, just from two different angles."

Tue Minh smiled slightly at the sincerity in his words, feeling a trust gradually forming between them, beyond the scope of pure work. "Okay, Inspector Bach," she replied. "Let's find this truth together, no matter how complicated and dangerous it is."

That night, while sitting alone in her small apartment, Tue Minh reopened the wooden box containing the will pieces, her eyes glued to the assembled pieces of paper, trying to visualize the panorama that was gradually emerging - a story of forbidden love, of a questionable death, and of a silent heir living in the heart of the family without knowing about her own true bloodline. She knows that the journey ahead will still be difficult, but she also knows one thing for sure - she will never step back, until every last piece of the puzzle is put in its right place.