Chapter 2 - The Second Family
Clara finally found her voice, though it shook like a dry leaf in a winter gale.
“I didn't come here to blackmail you, Mr. Hale,” she whispered, her chin trembling. “When my mother passed away six months ago, I found old letters—letters proving who my father was, and proving that your family’s fortune was built on the ruin of mine. I didn't want your money. I wanted answers. I took the job through the agency just to see the man who inherited everything my father stole from us.”
“And instead of exposing us, you stayed?” I asked, my mind racing through a maze of impossible variables. “You watched me run a criminal empire, you watched my men carry weapons through these halls, and you stayed to shave my dying mother’s head?”
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“Because your mother was innocent,” Clara said fiercely, her tears spilling over her lashes. “She didn't know anything about my father’s past until I dropped a photograph on her bedside table three months ago. And instead of calling security, she looked at me... and she apologized for a sin she never committed.”
I turned my back on both of them, walking over to the mahogany window that overlooked the sprawling estate. Outside, my armed guards patrolled the perimeter gates, completely unaware that the greatest threat to our bloodline had been folding laundry in the west wing for nearly a year.
