Chapter 6 - The Secret of the East Wing
The conservatory of the Lake Forest estate was a breathtaking Victorian-style greenhouse filled with towering ferns, orchids, and exotic citrus trees, illuminated only by the faint amber glow of landscape lighting piercing through the rain-slicked glass roof.
Derek Vance stood near the center fountain, shivering violently in his ruined designer suit. His hair was plastered to his forehead, water dripped from the expensive wool of his coat onto the stone floor, and his eyes were bloodshot and wild. When the heavy glass door slid open and Grace stepped into the room, looking like an untouchable queen in her emerald silk blouse and tailored trousers, Derek let out a pathetic, ragged breath.
"Grace..." he choked out, taking a step toward her before slipping slightly on the wet stone.
"Stop right there," Grace commanded, her voice cutting through the sound of the rain like a glass shard. "You have thirty seconds to explain why I shouldn't press trespassing charges and have you thrown into a holding cell for the night, Derek."
Derek dropped to his knees on the damp stone, ignoring the chill seeping into his bones. All of his arrogant posture, his CEO swagger, his sneering condescension—it was completely gone, stripped away by utter desperation.
"I lost everything, Grace," he sobbed, his voice cracking with genuine hysteria. "Cynthia left me the moment she found out Vance Real Estate was seized by your bank. My mother is screaming at me in a dingy motel room in Cicero because we had to pack our lives into trash bags. I have nothing left. I am a ghost."
"That sounds remarkably like the speech I would have given you four months ago in a freezing hospital room," Grace replied coldly, folding her arms across her chest. "Except I had a newborn baby in my arms, and you threw divorce papers at my face. You reap what you kill, Derek. Now, where is this information about my mother?"
Derek reached inside his soaked breast pocket with trembling fingers and pulled out a damp, yellowed envelope, holding it out like an offering to a deity.
"Inside... inside my father’s personal safe at our old family home," Derek gasped, wiping rain and tears from his face. "My father was Charles’s chief legal accountant before he passed away two years ago. He kept a private journal—a contingency ledger in case Charles ever tried to throw him under the bus for the baby switch in 2001. Your mother... she didn't die in childbirth, Grace. Charles locked her away in a private psychiatric facility in rural Wisconsin to keep her quiet, and she’s still there."
The world around Grace seemed to tilt on its axis. All the air rushed out of her lungs. Her mother wasn't a tragic ghost of a forgotten medical file; she was alive. Locked away for twenty-four years by the monster who had stolen her child.
Grace stepped forward, snatched the damp envelope from Derek’s shaking hand, and tore it open. Inside was a faded polaroid photograph of a young woman with the same auburn hair and brown eyes as her own, holding a hospital wristband, alongside an address and a signed ledger page detailing the hush-money payments sent to the sanitarium every month.
"Marcus!" Grace shouted toward the glass door, her voice echoing through the conservatory with the force of a thunderclap.
The door slid open instantly, and Marcus stepped inside, flanked by two security guards.
"Get our private jet prepped for a flight to Milwaukee immediately," Grace ordered, her eyes blazing with a terrifying, righteous fury. "And get our top medical team on standby."
She looked down at Derek, who was still kneeling on the floor, looking up at her with pathetic, pleading eyes.
"Please, Grace," Derek whispered. "Help me. Give me a job, some money... anything. We used to love each other."
Grace looked down at him with utter, profound pity—not because she felt sorry for him, but because he was so utterly small compared to the legacy she was about to reclaim.
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"We never loved each other, Derek," Grace said quietly. "You loved power, and I mistook your tolerance for affection. Marcus, give him five thousand dollars for a bus ticket out of Illinois. And make sure he’s never allowed within sight of this estate again."
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