SHATTERED GLASS

"She took her," I said, the words tasting like ash in my mouth.

Panic seized the house. Nathaniel was yelling for the security guards, his composure completely shattered. The composed billionaire was gone; in his place was a terrified father.

I didn't wait for the guards. My mother hadn't waited for permission to run into a burning building, and I wasn't going to wait now. I ran toward the back of the estate, following the direction of the crash.

The French doors leading to the gardens were smashed. Glass glittered on the stone patio like cruel diamonds under the moonlight.

"Lily!" I screamed into the dark expanse of the manicured lawns.

Nothing. Only the sound of the wind rushing through the ancient oak trees.

I moved fast, my catering shoes slipping on the damp grass. Where would Victoria take an eight-year-old? She wouldn't try to leave the property yet; the front gates were guarded. She was looking for something. The ledger she had threatened Eleanor with.

I remembered the gossip from the kitchen staff earlier that evening. The old greenhouse. The head chef had complained that the electricity in the Victorian-era glass greenhouse had been acting up because someone had been out there digging around the floorboards.

I veered left, sprinting toward the massive glass structure looming at the edge of the property.

As I approached, I saw a flicker of light inside. A flashlight.

I pressed my back against the damp glass, creeping toward the slightly ajar iron door.

Inside, the air was thick, humid, and smelled of rotting orchids. Through the dense foliage, I saw Victoria. Her designer gown was muddy at the hem, and she was frantically pulling up a loose wooden floorboard near the irrigation controls.

And there, huddled in the corner behind a massive terracotta pot, was Lily. The little girl was crying silently, clutching a thick, leather-bound book to her chest.

"Give it to me, you little brat!" Victoria hissed, abandoning the floorboard and stepping toward Lily. "That belongs to me!"

"It says Whitmore Foundation," Lily cried, shrinking back. "It's Daddy's!"

"Your daddy is going to be penniless when I'm done with him," Victoria snarled, reaching out to grab the child's arm.

I didn't think. I shoved the heavy iron door open. It banged loudly against the glass wall.

Victoria spun around, dropping her flashlight.

"Step away from the child," I said. My voice was no longer the polite, invisible tone of a server. It was the voice of a mother who had disciplined teenagers and protected her own. It carried the weight of my mother's blood.

Victoria laughed, a harsh, jagged sound. "The caterer to the rescue. How pathetic. You think you're a hero? You're nothing. You're the help."

"I am Amara Johnson," I said, stepping between her and Lily. I reached back, and Lily immediately grabbed my hand, burying her face against my hip. "And you are trespassing."

"I have every right to be here!" Victoria screamed, pointing at the ledger in Lily's hands. "Do you know what's in that book? The Whitmore Foundation is a fraud! Eleanor didn't fund it with family money. Half of the initial capital came from a patent. A patent registered under a dummy corporation because the real inventor couldn't legally claim it back then."

I frowned, keeping my body shielded over Lily. "What are you talking about?"

"Your mother, you idiot!" Victoria spat. "Ruth Johnson didn't just carry a baby out of a fire. She invented the respiratory valve that saved half the preemies in that ward! Eleanor stole the design, patented it, and built an empire on it. I found the proof in this ledger. I was going to leverage it to take over the foundation. But now? Now I'm going to burn it, and this family's reputation, to the ground."

Answer one. Open two.

My mother was an inventor? The woman who washed floors to buy my schoolbooks had created a medical device that made millions?

Before I could fully process the magnitude of the lie—or the truth—a figure stepped out from the shadows of the greenhouse.

It was my catering manager, David.