Chapter 4 - My brothers knew something
“Why can't I see it?”
Alexander avoided answering.
That guaranteed I would.
My second brother, Nathaniel, arrived before midnight.
All three Sterling brothers sat opposite me.
For most of my life they'd protected me.
That night, for the first time, they looked afraid of me.
Victor spoke first.
“Dad created seven private structures.”
S1 through S6 funded investments, charities and family assets.
S7 officially never activated.
“Unofficially?”
Nathaniel placed an old document before me.
Beneficiary:
Vivienne Sterling.
I laughed from sheer disbelief.
“So it's mine?”
“No,” Nathaniel said.
“Then what am I?”
Alexander answered.
“The trigger.”
Our father designed S7 to activate upon specific events connected to me.
Marriage.
Birth of a child.
Death.
Divorce.
Certain financial movements.
“Why?”
Nobody answered.
I stood.
“I've spent eight years pretending I'm ordinary because I didn't want our name controlling my marriage. Now you're telling me Dad built something around my marriage before I even met Dominic?”
Alexander looked toward Victor.
That tiny movement told me there was more.
“What aren't you saying?”
Victor finally spoke.
“Dad knew Dominic.”
Impossible.
Dominic and I supposedly met accidentally at a charity fundraiser three years after my father's death.
Then Nathaniel placed an old photograph on the table.
My father.
Dominic.
Dominic looked perhaps twenty.
They were shaking hands.
On the back:
D. Mercer — approved.
“Mercer?”
Dominic whispered:
“My mother's maiden name.”
He looked genuinely stunned.
Then Amelia noticed something.
A woman stood blurred behind my father.
Chloe.
Dominic's secretary.
Except the photograph was fourteen years old.
Chloe would have been approximately eighteen.
Victor enlarged it.
The resemblance was undeniable.
Then I remembered Chloe's words from the lobby.
I certainly wasn't expecting to see you here.
Not:
Why are you here?
She had expected me not to come.
There was a difference.
I turned toward Dominic.
“Did Chloe arrange tonight?”
He nodded slowly.
“She insisted Amelia and Noah attend.”
My anger suddenly found a new direction.
May you like
The gala humiliation hadn't been an accident.
Someone had deliberately placed both families inside the same building.
