Chapter 12 - The Daughter Nobody Claimed
I laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because sometimes your brain makes the wrong sound when reality becomes too stupid to accept.
“No.”
My mother didn’t blink.
“Yes.”
I looked at my father.
He seemed unable to meet my eyes.
“You had an affair with Victor’s wife?”
“Before she married Victor.”
“And Celeste is your daughter?”
“Yes.”
The room narrowed around me.
I had been eleven days away from marrying my half sister.
My stomach turned.
My mother said, “I found out when Celeste was a teenager.”
“You knew?”
“I knew there was a possibility.”
“A possibility?”
“Richard refused a DNA test.”
I looked at him.
“You let me date her.”
“I didn’t know at first.”
“We’ve been together two years.”
“I tried to end it.”
“How?”
He rubbed his face.
“I offered her money to leave.”
I stared at him.
“And?”
“She refused.”
Of course she did.
I thought of Celeste’s confidence in our home. Her obsession with the trust. Her constant pressure to move the wedding forward.
“She knows?”
My father whispered, “Yes.”
That hurt in a different way.
“She knew she might be my sister and stayed with me?”
“She knew for certain.”
My hands curled.
Brooks stepped between us before I could do something stupid.
“Why?”
My mother answered.
“Because Victor raised her to hate us.”
The nursery footage continued.
Emily said, “She’s getting close to Ethan on purpose.”
My father said, “I know.”
“You have to tell him.”
“I will.”
“When?”
“After I fix the Harbor problem.”
Emily laughed bitterly.
“You’ve been fixing that problem for twenty years.”
Then she held up the folder.
“If I die, these go public.”
The video cut off.
Brooks looked at the timeline.
“Camera lost power.”
My father shook his head.
“No. Someone disconnected it.”
My phone rang.
Celeste.
I answered.
“What?”
Her voice was calm.
“You found out.”
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
“You let me—”
“I never slept with you after I knew.”
“That is your defense?”
“No. My defense is that blood never made Richard your father in any meaningful way, and it never made him mine.”
“Why were you with me?”
“To get close enough to take back what your family stole.”
“What?”
“My life.”
I almost hung up.
Then she said, “Ask your father what happened to my real mother.”
I looked at him.
His face told me I should not ask.
So I did.
May you like
“What happened to her?”
Celeste whispered, “Emily wasn’t the first woman he buried.”
