Chapter 2: The Family That Wanted Her Dead
The elegant music stopped.
Every instinct told Emily to run.
The old gentleman stepped in front of her.
"Don't let them take her!"
The tallest man in black smiled without emotion.
"Mr. Harrison... after seventeen years, you're still protecting someone who should have stayed dead."
The words struck the room like lightning.
Dead?
Emily stared at them in disbelief.
"What are you talking about?"
No one answered.
Instead, one of the men quietly placed a thick envelope onto the banquet table.
Inside were newspaper clippings from seventeen years earlier.
"HEIRESS MISSING AFTER MANSION FIRE."
"ENTIRE FAMILY PRESUMED DEAD."
Then came the final page.
A photograph.
A little girl smiling beside her parents.
Emily's knees nearly gave way.
The child...
Was her.
Mr. Harrison's voice cracked.
"Your parents didn't die in an accident."
"They were murdered."
Emily felt the world spinning around her.
"But... why?"
He swallowed hard.
"Because your family owned billions."
"And someone wanted every dollar."
Before he could reveal the killer's name, a gunshot echoed through the ballroom.
The chandelier exploded.
Guests screamed.
Chaos erupted.
The men in black lunged toward Emily.
Mr. Harrison shoved her behind an overturned table.
"Run!"
Emily raced through the hotel's dark service corridor, clutching the old newspaper against her chest.
At the very end of the hallway stood an emergency exit.
She pushed it open.
A black luxury SUV was waiting outside.
The driver lowered the window.
"I've been waiting seventeen years for this moment."
Emily backed away.
"Who are you?"
The man removed his sunglasses.
"I'm your uncle."
Then he smiled.
"The man who ordered your parents' murder... is sitting at your family's dining table tonight."
Emily froze.
Because there was only one person still living in that house.
May you like
The woman she had called...
Mother.
