Chapter 5 - THE POCKET WATCH
We didn't stop running until we burst through the kitchen doors and into the cool night. A sleek silver Maybach idled at the end of the driveway, completely hidden behind the tall hedgerows.
Renata dragged me toward it. Alexander Vance threw the back door open, and we practically collapsed into the leather seats as the car tore away from the estate.
“Are you hurt?” Alexander asked immediately, his eyes scanning my face in the rearview mirror.
“No,” I gasped, clutching the velvet coat and the papers to my chest. “I have it. The proof.”
I handed the birth certificate and the blackmail receipt over the seat. Alexander turned on the overhead light. As he read Richard’s signature, his shoulders began to shake. It was a terrifying sight—a billionaire who commanded rooms and shattered lives, weeping silently in the front seat of a car.
“He threatened her,” Alexander whispered, tracing his thumb over Clara’s name. “He told her if she ever came near you, he would hurt you. That’s why she walked to the river. That’s why she left her coat.”
He looked back at me, his eyes filled with a grief so profound it anchored my own racing heart.
“I spent millions looking for you, Mariana,” Alexander said. “After my father died, I found his private ledgers. I saw a massive withdrawal, but no name attached. I knew Clara had a baby, but the trail was completely dead. The Sterlings forged a legal adoption under a closed-record county judge they bribed. To the world, you were a tragedy they saved.”
“They made me iron his clothes,” I whispered, the absurdity of my life suddenly hitting me. “They made me serve his food. I was their maid. Their slave. Because they were terrified if they let me have a real life, I might get too close to the truth.”
“They kept you close to control you,” Renata said softly, squeezing my hand. “Sebastian used to brag about how loyal you were. It always made me sick. I knew there was something wrong with that family.”
I looked at Renata. “Why are you marrying him, then?”
Renata’s expression darkened. She reached into her clutch and pulled out a heavy, antique gold pocket watch. I recognized it immediately. It belonged to Richard. He kept it on his desk, claiming it was his grandfather’s heirloom.
“I’m not marrying him for love, Mariana,” Renata said quietly. “I’m marrying him to destroy him.”
I stared at her. “What?”
“Two years ago, a foreman on one of the Sterlings' construction sites died in a scaffolding collapse,” Renata explained, her voice hardening. “His name was David. He was my fiancé.”
The air in the car turned to ice.
“The police ruled it an accident,” Renata continued, gripping the gold pocket watch. “But I knew David. He was meticulous. I started digging. I found out Richard Sterling ordered cheaper, substandard materials for the scaffolding and bribed the safety inspectors. When David found out and threatened to go to the press, the scaffolding miraculously collapsed the very next day.”
She opened the pocket watch. Tucked inside the lid wasn’t a clock face, but a tiny, folded micro-SD card.
“I started dating Sebastian to get inside the house,” Renata confessed. “To get into Richard’s study. I’ve spent the last ten months downloading every encrypted file, every bribe, every safety violation from his personal server. The wedding was my access point to his highest security clearance.”
I was stunned. Renata wasn't a pawn. She was a Trojan horse.
“Then why didn’t you just take it to the police?” I asked.
“Because white-collar crimes get swept under the rug with high-priced lawyers,” Alexander interrupted, his voice dropping an octave. “We aren't going to send Richard Sterling to a country club prison for a few years. We are going to dismantle his life. Publicly. Irreversibly.”
Alexander looked at me in the mirror.
May you like
“Tomorrow is the wedding, Mariana. Five hundred of New York’s elite will be there. The governor. The mayor. Investors. The press.” Alexander paused. “I want you to walk down the aisle.”
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