Chapter 2

I press my back against the wall outside his office. The hallway is dark. No one else is around. Julian's voice comes through the cracked door. Easy. Proud.

"You should've seen her face," he says. "She looked destroyed."

Another man laughs. Marcus. Julian's underboss. His drinking buddy. The man who never says no to Don Hale.

"What about the kid?" Marcus asks. "She really isn't yours?"

Julian snorts. "Of course she's mine. You think I'm stupid? Look at her face. She's my clone."

I grab the wall.

He knows. He's always known.

"So the DNA test—"

"Fake." Julian says it casually. He sounds bored. "I paid a family doctor to switch the results. Cost me ten grand. Worth every penny."

My nails dig into my palms.

"Elena needed something to use against Riley," he continues. "Her parents—well, Riley's parents—they've been too slow to hand over the family holdings. Elena's the blood heir, but Riley's name is still on everything. The trusts. The clean businesses. The family shares. All of it."

Marcus whistles. "So you humiliate Riley in public, make everyone think Sophie's not yours, and suddenly the whole family turns on her."

"Exactly. Now her parents will cut her off themselves. Elena gets everything she's owed, and I get to keep the family alliance on track. Elena already promised me forty percent of the clean assets once the transfer goes through."

I can't breathe.

This was never about Sophie. This was a deal.

"What about Riley?" Marcus asks. "You think she'll actually leave?"

Julian laughs again. That laugh I used to love.

"Leave? Riley?" He takes a sip of something. I hear the glass clink. "She's obsessed with me. She has been since college. She'll cry for a week, I'll send some flowers, take her to dinner, and she'll come crawling back. She always does."

"And if she doesn't?"

"Then I'll let her go. She walks away with nothing. No money, no shares, no family. Where's she gonna go? No family protection. No money. A kid. No skills. She'll be back in two weeks."

Marcus laughs. "Cold, man."

"Smart," Julian corrects him. "There's a difference."

I stand in that hallway for a long time after they move on to talking about golf.

My hands stop shaking.

I feel dead inside.

Seven years.

Seven years. I built his home. I raised his daughter. I helped grow his empire. I brought the alliances. I handled the books while he slept.

And he just called me a woman with no skills.

I walk back to the elevator. I barely recognize myself in the elevator doors. Mascara under my eyes. My mother's handprint on my cheek.

But her eyes are dry.

I get in the car. Sophie is asleep in the backseat, still clutching her paper crown.

I don't drive to Julian's house. I drive to my parents' compound.

Not because I think they'll help me. I know better now.

I'm going because everything I own—my documents, my trust papers, my shares—is locked in the study safe. And I need to get them before Elena does.

The gates open automatically. The compound gate still opens for me. For now, the Hale guards still think I belong here.

I carry Sophie inside and lay her on the couch in the foyer. She doesn't wake up. She's exhausted.

I head down the hall toward the study.

The light is already on.

I push the door open and find my mother sitting behind the desk. Elena is standing next to her. My papers are spread across the desk. Trusts. Territory papers. Property papers.

My mother looks up at me with no warmth in her eyes.

"Good," she says. "You're here. Sit down. We need to talk about what you owe the real heir."

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