CHAPTER 4 — The Truth at Gate 17
The ambulance arrived within minutes, but Lily refused to let go of Daniel’s sleeve.
“Don’t leave me,” she begged weakly.
Daniel’s eyes filled with tears.
“I won’t. Not this time.”
At the hospital, doctors rushed Lily into emergency care. Daniel waited outside, shaking, while Vanessa stood across from him in silence.
Then an older nurse approached.
“Are you Daniel Whitmore?”
He nodded.
The nurse handed him a second letter.
“Her mother left this for you.”
Daniel opened it with trembling hands.
Inside was the truth he never knew.
Emily had tried to contact him for years. Every letter had been blocked. Every call had been erased. Every message had been intercepted by the one person who wanted Daniel to marry Vanessa.
Vanessa’s mother.
Daniel slowly looked up.
Vanessa’s face turned white.
“My mother did this?” she whispered.
But the final line of Emily’s letter was even worse.
“Lily isn’t dying because she was born sick, Daniel. She’s dying because someone paid the hospital to delay her treatment.”
Daniel’s blood ran cold.
At that moment, Vanessa’s mother walked into the hallway with two lawyers and a smile.
“Still chasing ghosts, Daniel?”
Daniel stood up, holding the letter in his fist.
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“No,” he said, voice shaking with rage.
“I’m finally burying one.”
