Chapter 13 - MY SON'S FIRST QUESTION
The speakers went silent.
Nobody moved.
Ethan stared at the ceiling.
His face had lost all color.
“My whole life…”
His voice cracked.
“My whole life was planned?”
No one answered.
I stepped toward him.
“Ethan—”
He backed away.
“Don't.”
His eyes filled with tears.
“You don't get to say my name like you know me.”
I stopped.
He looked at my father.
“Did you know?”
My father closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
Ethan laughed bitterly.
“Of course.”
He turned away.
“I don't even know who I am.”
I wanted to tell him that he was my son.
That none of this was his fault.
That I would spend the rest of my life making up for fifteen stolen years.
But there was nothing I could say that could give him those years back.
Then Logan's voice came through the speaker.
“Maya.”
I froze.
“Come upstairs.”
“No.”
“Then Ethan dies.”
My heart stopped.
Ethan looked at me.
Logan continued.
“You have ten seconds.”
My father stepped forward.
“Don't listen to him.”
Nine.
Eight.
Seven.
I looked at Ethan.
He shook his head.
“Go.”
“No.”
“Go.”
“I lost you once.”
My voice broke.
“I'm not losing you again.”
Five.
Four.
Three.
Then the speakers went silent.
Ryan suddenly opened a side door.
“There!”
We ran.
The tunnel ended beneath an abandoned parking garage.
A black SUV waited outside.
We climbed in.
Ryan drove.
For several minutes, no one spoke.
Then Ethan finally asked:
“What happened the night I was born?”
My father stared through the windshield.
“I need to tell you.”
He began slowly.
“You were born at 3:14 in the morning.”
Ethan listened.
“Your mother was unconscious.”
“Logan arrived forty minutes later.”
“He had already bribed one of the hospital administrators.”
My hands clenched.
“Why?”
“Because Victor wanted the baby.”
Ethan frowned.
“Why me?”
My father looked at him.
“Because you were the first male heir born directly from the Sterling bloodline in three generations.”
Ethan stared.
“And Victor wanted my inheritance.”
“No.”
My father shook his head.
“He wanted something more valuable.”
“What?”
My father looked at me.
Then at Ethan.
“The Sterling Trust contains controlling rights over a network of companies that Victor has spent twenty years trying to acquire.”
Daniel added:
“And because Ethan was a minor, whoever controlled his legal guardianship could control those assets.”
Ethan's face hardened.
“So Logan raised me because of money.”
My father didn't answer.
But the silence was enough.
Then Ethan suddenly remembered something.
“There was a woman.”
Everyone looked at him.
“When I was little.”
“What woman?”
“She used to visit me.”
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
“What did she look like?”
Ethan closed his eyes.
“She had blonde hair.”
My heart stopped.
“Rachel?”
“No.”
He shook his head.
“She looked older.”
He paused.
“And she always told me…”
He swallowed.
“…that my mother would come back for me.”
I stared at him.
“Do you remember her name?”
Ethan slowly nodded.
“Yes.”
“What was it?”
He looked directly at me.
“Your mother's name.”
I frowned.
“My mother's name?”
He nodded.
“Evelyn.”
My blood froze.
My mother had never told me that name.
Because Evelyn wasn't my mother's name.
May you like
It was my mother's sister.
A woman everyone in my family believed had died twenty years ago.
