Chapter 25 - The Sterling Secret
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The silence in the foyer was suffocating.
Ben slammed the laptop shut, his knuckles white with suppressed rage. "I'm calling the Federal Bureau of Investigation right now. This is extortion, kidnapping threats, and federal racketeering."
"No!" I said sharply, grabbing his hand before he could pull out his phone.
Ben looked at me, stunned. "Lyd, they just threatened Clara! We can't handle a global syndicate with four private guards!"
"Think about it, Ben," I said, my mind racing as pieces of the past began to click together like a terrifying puzzle. "Julianna said my father lost the empire to them thirty years ago. She said my mother hid the Sterling ledger. If my mother hid something that big, she wouldn't have left it in a bank vault."
"Where would she leave it?" Ben asked, frowning.
I turned around and looked up the grand staircase toward the attic door at the end of the hall.
My mother had spent the last five years of her life in that attic room, surrounded by her easel, canvas paintings, and old trunks. She had suffered from memory loss near the end, but she had always been obsessively protective of one specific oil painting—a portrait of our family standing in front of the old harbor lighthouse.
"Follow me," I said, sprinting up the stairs.
We rushed up to the dusty attic. The air smelled of old paper, linseed oil, and dried lavender. I walked straight to the back wall where my mother’s favorite painting hung under a velvet shroud.
I pulled the velvet cloth away. The painting showed my father, my mother, and a young Ben and me standing on the rocky shore.
May you like
I turned the canvas over. The back was sealed with heavy brown paper and brass tacks.
Using a small letter opener from my pocket, I sliced through the paper. Tucked neatly between the wooden frame and the canvas was a thick, leather-bound notebook embossed with gold lettering: The Sterling Sovereign Trust.
