Chapter 6 - The True Heir
The ballroom slowly cleared out.
The politicians and CEOs quietly slipped away, eager to avoid the impending media storm.
Within an hour, only four people remained in the massive room.
Richard.
Daniel.
Eleanor.
And me.
I started to pack up my sewing bag to leave.
My hands were still shaking slightly.
I had just watched a dynasty collapse because of a loose thread on a piece of lace.
“Anna.”
I stopped.
Richard Harrington was walking toward me.
He looked exhausted, but the crushing weight he had carried for two decades seemed to have lifted.
“Yes, Mr. Harrington?”
Richard looked at the sewing bag in my hands.
“You could have walked away today.”
I swallowed hard.
“I almost did.”
“But you didn’t.”
Richard reached out and gently touched the strap of my bag.
“You stood up to Evelyn. You brought the locket here. You gave me my sister back.”
I didn’t know what to say.
I was just a seamstress.
People like Richard Harrington didn’t speak to people like me like this.
Eleanor walked over, her silver hair catching the light of the chandeliers.
She looked at me with deep, immense gratitude.
“You saved my life, Anna.”
“You saved yourself, ma’am,” I said quietly. “You hid the key.”
Eleanor smiled softly.
“But you found it. And you were brave enough to bring it into the light.”
She reached into her pocket and pulled out the small brass key.
She held it in her palm, staring at it for a long moment.
“There is something else you need to know, Richard,” Eleanor said, her voice dropping.
Richard frowned.
“What is it?”
Eleanor took a deep breath.
“The Langleys didn’t just lock me away because of the money.”
Daniel stepped closer.
“What do you mean?”
Eleanor’s eyes filled with fresh tears.
“When they took me that night... I was three months pregnant.”
The room went entirely still.
Richard’s face drained of color for the second time that night.
“Pregnant?”
Eleanor nodded, the tears finally spilling over.
“They kept me in a private wing until the baby was born. A little girl.”
She closed her fist around the key.
“The day after she was born, Evelyn Langley came into my room. She took my daughter.”
Richard looked as if he might be sick.
“Where is she?” he demanded. “Where is my niece?”
Eleanor shook her head.
“I don’t know. Evelyn told me she left her at a fire station in Brooklyn. She said if I ever tried to find her, she would have the child killed.”
Daniel clenched his fists.
“I’m going to kill that woman.”
Eleanor looked up at her brother.
“The documents in the Swiss vault don’t just prove the theft, Richard. They contain the original birth certificate. The real one.”
She pressed the key into Richard’s hand.
“We have to find her. We have to find my daughter.”
Richard closed his hand tightly around the brass key.
His eyes were burning with a terrifying, absolute resolve.
“We will,” Richard swore.
“I will tear this city apart brick by brick. We will find her.”
I stood there, listening to the tragic history of a broken family.
And for some reason, a strange chill ran down my spine.
A fire station in Brooklyn.
Twenty-five years ago.
I gripped my sewing bag tighter.
May you like
Because I was exactly twenty-five years old.
And I had been abandoned at a fire station in Brooklyn.
