Chapter 5 - THE BETRAYAL OF LILY“What do you mean Lily betrayed us?” I demanded as my mother dragged me toward the back door of the cottage.
“Keep your voice down!” she hissed.
We slipped out into the freezing coastal wind just as heavy footsteps pounded onto the front porch.
I could hear men shouting inside the house.
My mother led me down a steep, treacherous path carved into the cliffside, heading toward the crashing waves below.
Margaret was safe in my locked car hidden down the road, but my mother and I were entirely exposed.
We reached a small, rocky alcove hidden from the house above. My mother collapsed against the freezing stone, gasping for breath.
For the first time in thirty years, I was looking at the woman who gave birth to me.
Sarah.
“Mom,” I said, the word catching in my throat. “I don’t understand. Victoria showed me a picture of Lily. She said her father took her.”
Sarah let out a bitter, agonizing laugh.
“Charles didn’t take Lily,” she said, wiping her face. “He raised her. He adopted her the day your father forced me out. They split you two up like property.”
I felt sick.
“But Victoria said—”
“Victoria is a pawn,” Sarah interrupted. “She thinks she’s protecting Lily by marrying you. But Lily doesn’t need protecting, Ethan. Lily is Charles Ashford’s most ruthless asset.”
“She’s my sister.”
“She’s a stranger who was raised by a monster,” Sarah corrected gently, reaching out to touch my cheek. Her hand was freezing, but the warmth of a mother’s touch broke something open inside me.
“Lily found me last week,” Sarah continued. “She told me she wanted to escape Charles. She begged me for my location. I believed her, Ethan. I wanted my little girl back.”
A flashlight beam swept across the rocks above us.
“There they are!” a voice shouted.
Three men in heavy dark coats began scrambling down the cliff path.
I stepped in front of my mother. I didn't care who these men were. I would kill them before I let them touch her.
But the men didn't draw weapons.
Instead, they stepped aside.
A figure walked down the path, holding a flashlight.
It was a woman in her late twenties. She wore a pristine designer trench coat that looked absurd on the rugged Maine coast.
She had my eyes. She had my mother’s chin.
It was Lily.
She stopped a few feet away, looking at us with absolutely no emotion.
“Hello, Ethan,” she said.
I clenched my fists. “Lily.”
She held out her hand. Dangling from her fingers was the tarnished silver locket Victoria had given me at the church. The one I had left in the car with Margaret.
“You shouldn’t have left the old woman alone in your vehicle,” Lily said coldly.
My heart stopped.
“Where is Margaret?” I roared, stepping forward.
The three men instantly blocked my path.
Lily smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes.
“Margaret is safe. For now. But she’s on her way back to Connecticut with my men.”
May you like
Lily looked at our mother.
“And you two are coming with me. Father wants to have a family reunion before the wedding.”
