CHAPTER 5 – The Billionaire's Greatest Enemy
By afternoon, every member of the Blackwood family had received an emergency summons.
The mansion overlooking the Hudson had not hosted the entire family in nearly eight years.
Luxury cars filled the circular driveway.
Private security doubled around the estate.
Inside the grand dining hall, portraits of generations of Blackwoods stared down from gilded frames.
Emma felt painfully out of place.
She still wore borrowed clothes.
She still hadn't slept.
And now dozens of billionaires examined her as though she were evidence in a criminal investigation.
Ethan stood beside her.
"Nobody speaks to her disrespectfully."
His voice echoed through the room.
One woman laughed.
Victoria Blackwood.
Ethan's elegant aunt.
"You're bringing a random nurse into this house because she hugged you in a subway?"
Emma lowered her eyes.
Before she could answer...
The family attorney entered carrying another sealed envelope.
"I've just returned from the founder's private vault."
Every conversation stopped.
"The late Jonathan Blackwood left instructions."
The attorney broke the seal.
"If a young woman named Emma Carter ever enters this house..."
The room went completely silent.
"...she is to receive everything stored in Box Seven."
Victoria shot to her feet.
"Impossible!"
The attorney ignored her.
A small wooden chest was carried into the room.
Inside...
A tiny silver bracelet.
A baby photograph.
And a hospital wristband.
Emma slowly picked it up.
Printed across the faded plastic were two names.
Baby Girl Carter.
Baby Boy Blackwood.
Both born...
On the same day.
In the same hospital.
Only eleven minutes apart.
Emma looked at Ethan.
He looked equally stunned.
Before anyone could speak...
A gunshot exploded through the mansion.
Glass shattered.
Everyone dropped to the floor.
One sniper bullet slammed directly into the chair where Emma had been sitting seconds earlier.
May you like
Someone wanted her dead...
Before she learned the rest of the truth.
