CHAPTER 5 — The Daughter’s Secret
“Don’t move,” Rebecca hissed.
Her hand shook, but the gun was real.
Victor backed away from her.
“Rebecca, put that down.”
She swung the gun toward him.
“Shut up!”
Ethan slowly raised his hands.
“Rebecca, Lily is here.”
Rebecca’s eyes filled with tears, but they were not the tears of a broken wife.
They were the tears of a woman watching her perfect lie collapse.
“She ruined everything,” Rebecca whispered.
Lily flinched.
Ethan stepped in front of his daughter.
“No. You don’t even look at her.”
Rebecca laughed bitterly.
“You think she’s innocent?”
Ethan froze.
Lily’s fingers tightened around his shirt.
Rebecca smiled through her tears.
“Ask her why she really started collecting evidence.”
Ethan turned slightly.
Lily’s face crumbled.
“Dad…”
Rebecca’s voice became cruel.
“Tell him.”
Lily shook her head, sobbing.
“Tell him!” Rebecca screamed.
Ethan kept his voice gentle.
“Lily, whatever it is, you can tell me.”
The girl looked up at him with terrified eyes.
“She was going to send me away.”
Ethan’s chest tightened.
“What?”
Lily wiped her face with shaking hands.
“Mom said after you died, Victor didn’t want another man’s child around. She found a boarding school in Montana. She said I was unstable. She said no one would believe me.”
Ethan’s face changed.
The betrayal of a wife had hurt him.
But this...
This awakened something far more dangerous.
Rebecca pointed the gun at the floor, crying harder.
“I was going to give her a better life.”
“No,” Ethan said. “You were going to erase her.”
Victor suddenly moved toward the hallway.
Rebecca turned.
Ethan used that half-second.
He pushed Lily behind the wall and slammed his shoulder into Rebecca’s arm.
The gun fired.
A deafening crack exploded through the room.
Glass shattered.
Rebecca screamed.
Victor fell backward, clutching his shoulder.
The bullet had hit him.
Rebecca dropped the gun.
Ethan kicked it across the floor.
Lily screamed again as police sirens wailed outside.
Rebecca looked toward the window in horror.
Ethan breathed heavily.
“You called them?” she whispered.
Ethan shook his head.
“No.”
Lily slowly lifted the flash drive.
“I did.”
Rebecca stared at her daughter like she was seeing her for the first time.
Lily’s voice trembled, but she did not look away.
“You taught me how to survive without a mother.”
The front door burst open.
Police stormed inside.
Rebecca fell to her knees.
But when the officers arrested her...
She screamed only one thing.
Not Ethan’s name.
Not Lily’s.
Victor’s.
And Ethan finally realized the truth.
May you like
Rebecca had never loved either of them.
She had only loved the life his suffering bought her.
