Chapter 12 - The Ghost of the Vance FamilyMy knees wobbled, and I sank back down into the chair. "My uncle? Everyone... Bernice, the police reports, the newspaper clippings—they said the entire family died in that boating accident twenty-eight years ago."
"Not the entire family," Arthur said, pulling out a chair and sitting across from me without an invitation. His eyes scanned the messy kitchen, lingering on the crumpled shopping bag and the small pink baby blanket still lying on the floor near the living room entrance. "I wasn't on that yacht. I was overseas handling an overseas asset acquisition for the family corporation. By the time I flew back, your parents and their yacht were gone, and you—just six months old—had vanished from the nursery."
"And Bernice?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper. "Was she part of it?"
"Bernice was just a greedy, ambitious nanny who saw an opportunity in the chaos," Arthur replied coldly. "She snatched you during the confusion, faked your death certificates with the help of a corrupt local registrar, and raised you under her thumb so she could control the trust fund when you hit twenty-eight. She played a long, dangerous game."
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"And Savannah?" I added, the bitter taste of betrayal rising in my throat. "Where does she fit into this grand chessboard?"
Arthur leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. "Savannah isn't just some random librarian, Christopher. Her family—the Masons—were the original majority shareholders of Vance Global before your grandfather bought them out legally back in the eighties. They went bankrupt, her father drank himself to death, and Savannah swore an absolute blood oath to reclaim the company. She didn't just target you by accident. She engineered every single step of your life for the past five years."
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