CHAPTER 4: THE WILL IN THE WALL
By dawn, Ethan brought Emma back to the mansion.
But this time...
She did not enter through the servants’ door.
She walked through the front entrance.
Mrs. Dalton followed behind them, trembling.
Ethan led Emma to a locked room at the end of the east wing.
The room was covered in dust.
Portraits lined the walls.
One portrait showed a young woman with soft brown eyes.
Emma stopped breathing.
“That’s my mother.”
Ethan nodded.
“Lillian Ashford.”
Emma whispered, “Why was her picture hidden?”
Before Ethan could answer, Mrs. Dalton shouted from the doorway.
“Because she disgraced this family!”
Ethan turned.
“No. My father disgraced this family.”
Mrs. Dalton’s face twisted.
“You don’t know what she did.”
Ethan stepped toward her.
“I know what you helped hide.”
Mrs. Dalton went pale.
Ethan opened an old desk drawer and pulled out a brass key.
Then he moved to the wall behind Lillian’s portrait.
There was a small locked panel.
Inside it...
A sealed envelope.
Emma’s name was written across the front.
Not “Emma Carter.”
Emma Ashford.
Her hands shook as Ethan opened it.
Inside was Lillian’s final letter.
She had written that Emma and Noah were rightful heirs.
She had written that their grandfather had erased them from the family records.
She had written that she feared someone inside the mansion had been paid to make sure her children never returned.
Emma looked at Mrs. Dalton.
“You knew?”
Mrs. Dalton’s eyes filled with panic.
“I only followed orders.”
Ethan’s voice was deadly calm.
“You let my niece scrub floors in her own family’s house.”
Mrs. Dalton backed away.
Emma could barely breathe.
All those days she had entered through the kitchen.
All those nights she ate scraps on the floor.
And the whole time...
This mansion had partly belonged to her.
Then Ethan opened the second document.
His face hardened.
It was a revised will.
Signed by his father.
Witnessed by Mrs. Dalton.
Leaving everything to Ethan alone.
But beneath the signature...
There was another line.
A hidden clause.
If Lillian’s children were ever found alive...
Half the Ashford estate would belong to them.
Mrs. Dalton suddenly ran for the door.
But Ethan’s security stopped her.
Emma looked at the woman who had starved her.
And whispered...
“You knew my name before I applied, didn’t you?”
Mrs. Dalton broke.
“Yes.”
Then she screamed the truth.
May you like
“I was supposed to make you quit before he saw your face!”
End of Chapter 4.
