Chapter 2 - ELENA VANCE
Richard recovered first.
“Alexander.”
His voice was calm.
Too calm.
“This is not the place.”
Alexander stepped between us.
“You told me she was dead.”
I stared at Richard.
“What?”
Richard’s face hardened.
“Mariana, go inside.”
“No.”
“You are making a scene.”
“No.”
That word felt dangerous.
I liked it.
Alexander looked at Richard.
“Twenty-seven years.”
People inside the ballroom had begun watching through the glass.
Richard lowered his voice.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I know exactly what she looks like.”
Alexander pointed at me.
“She has Elena’s face.”
Beatrice whispered:
“That proves nothing.”
Alexander laughed bitterly.
“No.”
Then he looked at me.
“Do you have a birth certificate?”
“Yes.”
“Who is listed as your birth mother?”
I hesitated.
“I don’t know.”
All my life, the Sterlings had kept the adoption documents.
Whenever I asked, Beatrice said:
“Why torture yourself?”
Alexander looked back at Richard.
“Convenient.”
Richard grabbed my wrist.
“We’re leaving.”
I pulled away.
Again.
The second time was easier.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Then Renata appeared.
“What’s happening?”
Sebastian followed.
“Dad?”
Richard’s expression cracked.
“Nothing.”
Alexander looked at his daughter.
“This woman may be your cousin.”
Silence.
Renata stared at me.
Sebastian laughed nervously.
“What?”
Beatrice turned to him.
“Sebastian, go back inside.”
“No.”
Renata looked at her father.
“Dad?”
Alexander said:
“My sister Elena disappeared while pregnant twenty-eight years ago.”
Sebastian’s face changed.
He looked at Richard.
Then me.
“Mariana?”
I couldn’t speak.
Richard finally exploded.
“This is absurd!”
The entire terrace went silent.
He pointed at Alexander.
“You spent decades obsessed with some runaway sister, and now you’re hijacking my son’s wedding because a girl happens to resemble her?”
A girl.
Not daughter.
Alexander looked almost calm.
“DNA can settle it.”
Beatrice went white.
That reaction settled more than DNA did.
Renata saw it too.
“So test.”
Beatrice looked at her.
“This is none of your concern.”
Renata’s face cooled.
“If Mariana is my cousin, it is very much my concern.”
Sebastian grabbed my arm.
“Come on.”
I pulled free.
“Stop touching me.”
He stared.
I had never said that to him.
Then Richard said the sentence that destroyed the last fragile part of our relationship.
“After everything we’ve done for you, this is how you repay us?”
I laughed.
Actually laughed.
“Repay?”
My voice shook.
“I’ve been repaying you since I could reach the sink.”
Beatrice whispered:
“You ungrateful—”
“No.”
I stepped backward.
“No more.”
Then Alexander spoke.
“Mariana, you don’t have to leave with them.”
Richard’s face changed.
“She lives in my house.”
I looked at him.
Not anymore.
I did not say it yet.
But I knew.
The wedding was postponed.
Not canceled.
Postponed.
Renata refused to marry Sebastian until she understood what his family had hidden.
Sebastian blamed me immediately.
Of course.
“You ruined everything.”
We stood in the hallway outside the bridal suite.
“I didn’t know anything.”
“You could have left Dad alone.”
“Alexander approached me.”
“You always do this.”
I stared.
“Do what?”
“Make things harder.”
I almost smiled.
My entire life, I had cleaned up his consequences.
Yet somehow I made things harder.
I walked away.
Alexander arranged a DNA test the next morning.
I agreed.
So did he.
Richard and Beatrice refused to provide any records.
That became suspicious fast.
I packed a suitcase.
Beatrice stood in my doorway.
“You’re leaving?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“You have no idea how the world works.”
“Maybe.”
I folded shirts.
“You have no savings.”
Wrong.
I had $18,000.
Money saved secretly over years from freelance bookkeeping.
Not much.
Enough.
“You have no property.”
True.
“You don’t even have a proper résumé.”
Also mostly true.
Because everything I did for them had been unpaid.
Beatrice saw hesitation.
Then smiled.
“You’ll be back.”
I looked at her.
“Maybe.”
That scared her more than a dramatic speech would have.
I took my suitcase.
As I walked downstairs, Richard stood in the foyer.
“You walk out that door, don’t expect to come back.”
I stopped.
Then looked around.
Twenty-seven years.
Polished floors I cleaned.
Flowers I ordered.
Furniture I dusted.
A house I maintained while being reminded it was never mine.
“Okay.”
I walked out.
Alexander offered me a hotel.
I refused.
Renata offered her guest room.
I hesitated.
Then accepted one week.
Not forever.
One week.
The DNA result came forty-eight hours later.
Alexander called me into his Manhattan office.
Renata was there.
His attorney too.
He placed the report in front of me.
Probability of biological relationship consistent with uncle/niece:
99.8%.
I stared.
Alexander covered his face.
Then started crying.
Not quietly.
Twenty-eight years of grief collapsing at once.
Renata held his shoulder.
I sat frozen.
I had family.
Biological family.
People I had never known existed.
Then the attorney said:
“Mariana, there’s something else.”
My stomach tightened.
“What?”
Alexander looked at him.
“Tell her.”
The lawyer opened another file.
“Your mother was not merely Alexander’s sister.”
I almost laughed from exhaustion.
“What else?”
“She owned twenty-two percent of Vance Development Holdings.”
I stared.
“Owned?”
“Yes.”
“When she disappeared, her shares were placed in a missing-person trust.”
“Who controls them?”
Alexander’s face hardened.
“Until now?”
Pause.
“Richard Sterling.”
The room went silent.
I stopped breathing.
Richard had not adopted me out of charity.
May you like
He had been controlling my mother’s assets for twenty-seven years.
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