Chapter 6 - The Trap
"How did you get this number, Victoria?" I asked, keeping my voice steady despite the ice running through my veins. Adrian immediately went rigid, leaning close to listen to the call.
"Oh, it's amazing what a half-million-dollar retainer to a private investigator can buy," Victoria laughed, a shrill, hysterical sound. "We found your little brother, Leo. Such a sweet boy. He was so confused when we asked him about his sister the billionaire. He thought you were still serving champagne to your betters."
"If you touch my brother—" I began, a fierce, primal rage boiling up inside me.
"We haven't touched him... yet," Victoria purred. "But we have a signed affidavit from him confirming your real name and background. We also have the catering company's employment records and your tax returns for the last five years. Tomorrow at ten o'clock, the Russo Group is holding its emergency board meeting. My family will be there with the press, the police, and your fraud charges. Unless..."
"Unless what?" Adrian demanded, snatching the phone from my hand, his voice vibrating with a terrifying rage. "Speak carefully, Victoria. Your family’s company is already on life support. I can pull the plug before midnight."
"Adrian! How wonderful to hear your voice," Victoria said, though her tone faltered slightly under his fury. "The terms are simple. You will dissolve your partnership with the Rosewood Trust, allow the board to absorb those assets, and sign a ten-year, interest-free credit line extension for the Harlow Group. Do that, and your little plus-size charity case can slip back into the gutters of Queens without a criminal record. If not, she goes to Rikers Island, and your family's empire collapses in a wave of public fraud. You have until ten tomorrow morning."
The line went dead.
I sank back onto the sofa, my hands over my face. The fairy tale was over. The glass slipper had shattered, and the shards were cutting deep. "She has Leo, Adrian. She has my records. It's over. I have to give myself up."
Adrian dropped to his knees in front of me, forcing my hands away from my face. His expression wasn't panicked; it was cold, calculating, and deadlier than I had ever seen it.
"Listen to me," Adrian said, his voice a steady anchor in the storm. "Victoria thinks she has cornered a wolf, but she has only walked into the den. She made one fatal mistake."
"What mistake?" I wept. "She has the truth!"
"She thinks the Rosewood Trust is a lie," Adrian said, a dark, brilliant smile spreading across his face. "She thinks I invented Sophia Vance at that wedding to save you. But remember what I told you on our first night, Sophia? The trust is real. The reclusive Sophia Vance died three months ago without an heir."
I blinked, wiping away my tears. "Right. So it is fraud."
"No," Adrian said, pulling a leather-bound file from his desk drawer. "Because what I didn't tell you—what I didn't even know until my legal team finished tracing the deep history of the Rosewood Trust yesterday—is who originally funded that trust fifty years ago."
He opened the file, pointing to a copy of an old birth certificate and a genealogical record.
"The trust was established by a man named Charles Vance for his secret, estranged daughter, Eleanor. Eleanor had a daughter out of wedlock before she married into money. To protect the child from a scandal in high society, the baby was given up for adoption. That child was your mother, Margaret Callahan."
May you like
I stared at the documents, my heart stopping completely. "What?"
"Sophia Vance wasn't a stranger," Adrian said, his eyes shining with triumph. "She was your mother’s older half-sister, who died without a will. Under New York state law, when a reclusive billionaire dies intestate without direct lineage, the estate reverts to the closest living blood relatives. You aren't an imposter playing Sophia Vance, my love. You are the rightful, legal heir to the Rosewood Trust. You always were."
