Chapter 3 - THE DAUGHTER WHO NEVER EXISTED
I did not trust Sebastian.
Kindness inside the Sterling family could be another form of strategy.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.
“My father spent his final months hiding documents,” Sebastian replied. “He believed someone inside the company was stealing from him.”
“Did you believe him?”
“I thought his medication was making him paranoid.”
The regret in Sebastian’s voice seemed real, but regret was not evidence of innocence.
Vivian tapped sharply on the glass.
“Are we opening a repair shop, or are we going home?”
I returned to the driver’s seat.
For the rest of the journey, nobody spoke.
At the estate, Grant followed me toward the staff entrance.
“Hand over the phone,” he ordered.
“I found no phone.”
His fingers closed around my wrist.
“Do not make the mistake of believing you are protected because my cousin has noticed you.”
I pulled my arm free.
“Do not make the mistake of touching me again.”
Grant smiled, but his eyes remained empty.
“You have no idea how easily people like you disappear.”
He walked away before anyone could witness the threat.
That night, I locked myself inside my small apartment above the estate garage and opened the envelope.
The first item was a photograph.
A young woman stood beside Richard Sterling in front of the family’s summer house. She had dark hair, gray eyes, and a small crescent-shaped birthmark near her left eyebrow.
I walked to the mirror.
The same birthmark rested above my own eye.
Behind the photograph was a letter.
Richard had written it by hand.
He explained that his daughter Lillian had fallen in love with a graduate student named Daniel Hale. Vivian considered him socially unsuitable and threatened to cut Lillian off unless she ended the relationship.
Lillian refused.
When she became pregnant, Vivian sent her to a private clinic under a false name. After the birth, Vivian arranged the adoption without Lillian’s consent.
My biological mother had believed I died shortly after delivery.
Years later, Lillian discovered the truth.
She returned to New York and began searching for me.
At the same time, she discovered that Grant, then a junior financial officer, had been moving company funds through false suppliers. Lillian collected proof and planned to expose him at a board meeting.
She never reached it.
Her brakes failed on a mountain road.
Richard wrote that a mechanic later confessed someone had paid him to alter the brake line. Before Richard could take the confession to police, the mechanic vanished.
Richard suspected Grant.
But the final paragraph changed everything.
Vivian found the mechanic’s original report before I did. She locked it away because public scandal would have destroyed the company. She chose the Sterling name over our daughter. I have never forgiven her.
I lowered the letter.
Vivian had not necessarily ordered Lillian’s death.
But she had buried the truth.
A knock sounded at my door.
I froze.
“Nora,” Sebastian called from the hallway. “It’s me.”
I slipped the documents into a kitchen drawer before opening the door.
Sebastian stood alone.
“I checked the vehicle’s maintenance system,” he said. “There was no engine warning.”
“You came here after midnight to accuse me of lying?”
“I came because Grant ordered security to search your apartment at six tomorrow morning.”
The blood drained from my face.
“What is he looking for?”
“You already know.”
Sebastian stepped inside and closed the door.
“I found something else. My father changed his will before he died, but the final document vanished from his attorney’s office.”
He placed a photocopy on my table.
The page listed the beneficiaries of the Sterling family trust.
Vivian Sterling.
Sebastian Sterling.
Grant Mercer.
And one line that had been crossed out in black ink.
Sebastian held the paper beneath the light.
Under the ink, the original name was still faintly visible.
Nora Lillian Hale.
“You’re my sister’s daughter,” he said.
Before I could answer, the hallway floor creaked.
May you like
Someone was standing outside my door.
Then the handle began to turn.
