CHAPTER 5 – The Mother Everyone Buried Was Still Alive
Paramedics rushed Adrian out of the ballroom as flashing cameras followed every second of the chaos.
Nathan climbed into the ambulance without hesitation.
Richard Crawford shouted after him.
"If you leave with that man... don't ever come back!"
Nathan didn't even look back.
Inside the ambulance, Adrian gripped Nathan's wrist with surprising strength.
"There's... not much time."
"What are you talking about?" Nathan asked.
Adrian reached inside his jacket and handed him a small brass key.
"This opens Safety Deposit Box 117... at First National Bank."
Nathan frowned.
"What's inside?"
"The truth."
Before Nathan could ask another question, Adrian lost consciousness.
The next morning, every news channel in America carried the same headline:
"BILLIONAIRE DYNASTY COLLAPSES AFTER SHOCK DNA REVELATION!"
Nathan ignored every reporter waiting outside the hospital.
Instead, he drove straight to the bank.
Inside Box 117 sat only three things:
A faded family photograph.
A silver necklace with the initials E.C.
A sealed letter addressed...
To My Son, Nathan.
His hands trembled as he opened it.
If you're reading this, then Richard's lies have finally begun to fall apart.
Your mother isn't dead.
Nathan stopped breathing.
Richard paid doctors to declare her dead after a staged car accident. She has been living under another identity for twenty-eight years because she refused to surrender you.
Nathan dropped the letter.
"No..."
Tears blurred his vision.
His mother...
The woman whose grave he had visited every birthday...
Had never been buried there.
At the bottom of the envelope was a single photograph.
An elderly woman smiling outside a small flower shop.
May you like
Written on the back:
Rosewood, Montana.
