Part 23
My mother let out a dry, hacking cough that shook her frail frame, but her gaze never wavered from mine.
"Straight to the point. No tears, no false affection. I suppose I taught you well after all," she whispered.
"You taught me how to survive you," I corrected coldly. "Nothing more."
She leaned back against her pillows, looking out the barred window of her hospital room.
"Your father was a fool, but he was a clever fool," she began, her voice dropping to a low hiss.
"He thought he hid everything from me. He thought that cliffside cottage and his little charitable project were complete secrets."
My heart stopped for a fraction of a second, but I forced my face to remain completely expressionless.
Beside me, I felt Rebecca tense up, her legal instincts on high alert.
"Oh, don't look so shocked," my mother sneered weakly. "I knew about his offshore structures years ago.
But I let him keep them because I thought they were insignificant compared to the empire I was building.
But what your father didn't know—what he was too blind to see—was that he wasn't the only one with a secret family history."
She turned her head back to look at me, a malicious glint returning to her fading eyes.
"Before I met your father, I had a brother," she said, the words falling like lead weights into the room.
"An older brother named Julian. He was unstable, violent, and utterly consumed by greed.
Our parents saw what he was and completely erased him from our family records, paying millions to keep him institutionalized.
When I took over the family assets, I kept paying the facility to keep him locked away, because I knew he would destroy everything I built if he ever got out."
She paused, letting the silence stretch between us, savoring the drama of the moment.
"Two weeks ago, my legal funding for that private facility officially dried up due to the court seizures," she whispered, a cruel smile stretching across her face.
"The facility released him. Julian is free. And he has spent the last forty years believing that the family wealth belongs entirely to him.
He doesn't know I'm broke. He doesn't know the empire is gone.
All he knows is that I am in prison, and that I have a daughter who is currently living somewhere along the coast, holding onto whatever remains of the family legacy."
A cold dread, deeper than anything I had felt before, settled into my bones.
My mother hadn't just called me here to reveal a secret; she had called me to deliver a death sentence.
"He is a monster, my dear," my mother chuckled, a horrific, rattling sound.
"A true monster that I kept caged for forty years. And now, thanks to your little crusade to ruin me, he is out.
And he is looking for you."
I stood frozen, the walls of the room suddenly feeling like they were closing in.
Rebecca stepped forward, her voice cutting through the panic like ice.
"Where is he now? Give us a name, a location, an appearance."
May you like
"I don't know," my mother whispered, her eyes closing as exhaustion finally overtook her.
"But he knows who you are. Good luck, my beautiful daughter. Let's see if your little masterpiece can survive a real predator."
