Chapter 5 - THE HIDDEN PORTRAIT
The drive to the Whitmore estate took twenty agonizing minutes.
My hands shook against the steering wheel of my father’s old sedan. Every time I hit a bump, the heavy silver pocket watch rattled against the plastic cupholder, a constant, terrifying reminder of the danger I was in.
I didn’t go to the house Nathan and I shared. I knew Margaret would send her lawyers there immediately to change the locks and secure the assets.
I drove straight to the belly of the beast. Margaret’s mansion.
I knew she wouldn’t be home yet. The baby shower fiasco would require hours of damage control. She would be busy paying off caterers, threatening guests with non-disclosure agreements, and consulting her high-priced attorneys to figure out how to salvage the trust money.
I pulled up to the heavy iron gates of the estate.
My heart hammered in my throat. I punched in my security code.
For a terrifying second, the red light blinked.
Then, it turned green. The heavy iron gates swung open. She hadn’t revoked my access yet.
I drove up the long, manicured gravel driveway and parked near the side entrance, hidden behind a row of tall hedges. I grabbed my purse, slipped the silver pocket watch inside, and used my key to unlock the heavy mahogany side door.
The mansion was completely silent.
It smelled of expensive lemon polish and fresh-cut lilies. The silence felt oppressive, like a tomb holding its breath.
I walked quickly through the formal dining room and into the grand main foyer.
The ceilings soared thirty feet high, crowned by a massive crystal chandelier. And there, hanging prominently on the wall above the sweeping marble staircase, was the portrait.
It was a life-sized oil painting of Arthur Whitmore.
He looked incredibly distinguished, with silver hair and sharp, intelligent eyes that looked remarkably like mine. He was seated in a leather chair, holding a book, and draped across his tailored vest was the silver chain of the exact pocket watch currently sitting in my purse.
Check the back of the portrait.
I looked up at the painting. The bottom frame was at least ten feet off the ground.
I hurried to the library and dragged a heavy wooden step stool into the foyer. My pregnant belly made climbing awkward and terrifying, but adrenaline erased my fear of falling.
I climbed to the top step, my hands reaching out to grip the thick, gilded frame of the portrait.
The painting was incredibly heavy. I gritted my teeth, planting my feet, and pulled the bottom edge of the frame away from the wall.
Dust showered down on my face.
I peered behind the canvas.
Taped to the dark wooden backing of the frame was a large, manila envelope.
My breath caught. I reached back, my fingers scraping against the rough wood, and tore the envelope free.
The painting swung back against the wall with a loud, heavy thud.
I climbed down the step stool as fast as I safely could, dropping to my knees on the marble floor.
I ripped the envelope open.
Inside was a stack of yellowed, fragile documents.
The first was a birth certificate.
I scanned the faded ink.
Name: Emily Rose Hayes. Mother: Sarah Hayes.
My mother had died when I was two years old. Dad always told me she passed away from a sudden aneurysm.
But as my eyes moved to the line for the father, the breath was knocked entirely out of my lungs.
The line didn’t say Walter Hayes.
The line read: Arthur James Whitmore.
“No,” I whispered, the paper trembling violently in my hands. “No, that’s impossible.”
I frantically flipped to the next document.
It was a private, notarized legal agreement dated twenty-five years ago.
It detailed a massive financial settlement between Arthur Whitmore and Walter Hayes.
I, Arthur Whitmore, acknowledge paternity of Emily Rose. To protect her from the malice of my wife, Margaret, I entrust her physical care to my trusted friend, Walter Hayes. Walter will raise Emily as his own daughter. In exchange, I leave my entire voting share of the Whitmore empire in a blind trust, to activate upon Emily’s first successful pregnancy.
I dropped the papers onto the marble floor.
My father wasn’t my biological father.
Arthur Whitmore was my father.
Which meant Nathan...
Bile rose in my throat. I clamped my hand over my mouth to keep from vomiting.
Nathan was my half-brother.
I had been married to my half-brother for four years. I was carrying a child...
Wait.
My mind raced frantically back to the confrontation in the ballroom.
“When Emily and Nathan started IVF two years ago, Nathan’s initial tests came back showing complete sterility.”
“She used a sample preserved by her late husband. Nathan’s father.”
The room spun wildly.
I wasn’t carrying Nathan’s baby. I was carrying a baby conceived through IVF using Arthur Whitmore’s preserved sample.
Arthur Whitmore was my biological father.
Which meant the baby I was carrying wasn’t just my child. Genetically, because of Margaret’s horrific, twisted manipulation to secure the trust money, I was carrying my own sibling.
“She knew,” I sobbed, the absolute, depraved evil of the situation crushing me. “Margaret knew.”
She knew I was Arthur’s illegitimate daughter. She had orchestrated the marriage between her son and her husband’s bastard child to keep the money in the family. When Nathan proved sterile, she used Arthur’s sample to ensure the baby carried the exact Whitmore genetics required to trigger the trust.
She had engineered an abomination just to keep her hands on a bank account.
“Did you find what you were looking for, Emily?”
The voice echoed from the top of the marble staircase.
I whipped around, scrambling backward on the floor, clutching the documents to my chest.
Margaret Whitmore stood at the top of the stairs.
She had changed out of her party dress and was wearing a sleek black pantsuit. Her face was devoid of the manufactured social panic from the baby shower. She looked utterly cold, calculating, and victorious.
Beside her stood Caroline, looking nervous but obedient.
And standing behind them both was Nathan.
“You knew,” I screamed at him, tears streaming down my face. “You knew we were related!”
Nathan looked away, unable to meet my eyes. He looked physically sick, his shoulders slumped.
“He didn’t know,” Margaret answered for him, slowly descending the stairs. “Nathan is weak. If I had told him he was marrying his half-sister, he would have lacked the stomach to go through with it. He simply thought you were a convenient, easily manipulated girl from a poor background.”
She reached the bottom of the stairs, her heels clicking ominously on the marble.
“But I knew,” Margaret smiled, a chilling, triumphant expression. “Arthur thought he was so clever, hiding his little bastard with a hospital janitor. He thought the trust was impenetrable.”
She stepped closer, towering over me as I sat on the floor.
“Give me the envelope, Emily.”
I clutched the papers tighter. “You’re going to prison. I have the proof. I have Arthur’s letter. I know you murdered him.”
Margaret laughed. It was a dry, hollow sound.
“Who are you going to show it to? Your father is in jail. You are trespassing in my home. And my security team is currently disabling the cameras on the estate.”
Caroline stepped forward, holding a small medical syringe.
“It’s time to go to the private clinic, Emily,” Caroline said, her voice shaking slightly. “We’re going to induce labor early. Leo needs his transplant.”
I scrambled to my feet, backing away toward the heavy front doors.
“You can’t do this,” I panicked, my hand searching blindly behind me for the door handle. “The police know where I am!”
“The police think you’re a hysterical pregnant woman whose husband just left her,” Margaret sneered. “By tomorrow morning, you will have tragically passed away from complications during an emergency C-section. Your baby will survive, Leo will be cured, and the trust will pass to Nathan as the grieving widower.”
My hand found the heavy brass handle of the door.
I yanked it downward.
It was locked. The deadbolt had been thrown from the outside.
Margaret smiled.
“There is nowhere to run, Emily. Give Caroline your arm.”
May you like
Caroline stepped toward me, raising the syringe.
I didn’t hesitate. I reached into my purse, wrapped my hand around the heavy, solid silver weight of Arthur Whitmore’s vintage pocket watch, and swung it as hard as I could directly at Caroline’s face.
