Chapter 28 - The Prodigal SisterGideon didn't invite Clara into the living room immediately. He led her to the private study, poured a cup of hot chamomile tea, and placed it on the mahogany table before sitting down opposite her, his hands folded calmly over his knees.
"You have five minutes, Clara," Gideon said, his tone neither hostile nor welcoming, merely assessing. "Tell me why you're standing in my home at midnight."
Clara stared down at the steaming teacup, her hands shaking so violently the ceramic rattled against the wood. "I know what my father and my uncle did. I know about the vault, the biometric keys, the ledger... I lived inside it, Mr. Hail. From the time I was eight years old, I was trained to be the primary backup key for the consortium's Swiss accounts."
She looked up, her dark eyes swimming with unshed tears. "When my father abandoned Ren and Nova in that apartment three years before he died... he didn't just leave them to die in the cold. He left them as a decoy so the FBI would focus on the Seattle node while he smuggled me out through Munich."
The study door clicked open.
Ren stood in the doorway, her wire-rimmed glasses pushed up on her forehead, her arms crossed over her chest. Nova stood right behind her, silent, watchful, her eyes locked on the stranger in the wet trench coat.
"We knew there was an older sister," Ren said quietly, her voice carrying an eerie, steady resonance that made Clara flinch. "The federal case files mentioned a girl who vanished from a boarding school in Zurich when we were four."
Clara turned her head slowly, looking at Ren and Nova. The resemblance was undeniable—the same sharp jawline, the same piercing gaze, the same undeniable stamp of the Vance bloodline.
"I didn't want any of it," Clara choked out, a tear finally spilling over her lashes. "I didn't want the money, the ledgers, or the security details. I threw my cryptographic keys into Lake Geneva six months ago. I’ve been living off-grid in Portland, washing dishes in a diner. But when I saw the news about Victor... and how you two used your freedom to build something real... I realized I couldn't hide in the dark anymore."
Ren looked at Clara for a long, silent moment. She didn't smile. She didn't offer immediate forgiveness. But she walked across the study, pulled out the empty chair beside Clara, and sat down.
"The diner in Portland," Ren said softly. "Was the pay decent?"
May you like
Clara blinked, surprised through her tears. "Minimum wage. And my feet hurt every night."
Ren gave a small, dry, familiar smirk—the exact twin of Gideon’s corporate humor. "Well, the dishwasher position at our foundation's cafeteria pays twenty-two dollars an hour, full health benefits, and tuition matching. Welcome to Seattle, sister."
