CHAPTER 4 — The Woman Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
The room became deathly quiet.
"Lily..." Ethan knelt beside her. "Who sends you those presents?"
"The nice grandma," she answered. "She always says Daddy isn't ready to know she's alive."
Victoria's face turned completely pale.
"No..."
One investigator immediately asked, "Do you remember her name?"
Lily smiled.
"Grandma Margaret."
The lead investigator dropped the file onto the table.
"Impossible."
He opened another folder marked CONFIDENTIAL.
A photograph appeared.
Margaret Carter.
Ethan's mother.
Declared dead in a private jet crash five years earlier.
Ethan stared at the image in disbelief.
"My mother died..."
The investigator slowly shook his head.
"There was never a body recovered."
At that exact moment...
The penthouse elevator chimed.
No one had called it.
The doors slid open.
An elegant elderly woman stepped out wearing a dark coat and white gloves.
Her silver hair shimmered under the lights.
She looked directly at Ethan.
Then at Lily.
Without saying a word, Lily ran into the woman's arms.
"Grandma!"
Victoria gasped.
The investigators instinctively reached for their weapons.
The woman calmly smiled.
"I'm not your enemy."
Ethan's voice cracked.
"Mother...?"
She looked at her son with tears in her eyes.
"I stayed away because your father wasn't the real monster."
Every person in the room froze.
"What do you mean?"
Margaret slowly reached into her handbag and placed an old leather journal on the marble table.
"It's time you learned who truly ordered your daughter's disappearance."
Ethan opened the journal.
The very first page contained a single handwritten sentence.
"Never trust your own brother."
His hands began to shake.
Because he had trusted his younger brother, Daniel...
With everything.
And at that exact moment—
May you like
Daniel's name flashed on Ethan's phone.
Incoming Call.
