The next day, Julian called to warn me about a firm called Helvetti Capital that Silas was using to short the company’s stock. “They want the Florida project to fail so the stock crashes and they can buy the company for pennies,” Julian explained.
I asked him why he was helping a competitor, and he admitted he hated cowardly tactics and felt our family tragedies were linked. He asked if I knew anything about my parents’ accident twenty years ago, which made my blood run cold.
I hired a private detective to investigate Penelope and discovered she was actually Silas Vance’s former personal secretary. They had used her as bait to control Gavin so they could keep an eye on me for years.
My anger burned brightly because I realized my entire marriage had been a fraudulent setup by a criminal organization. I returned to the office with a promise to make them pay, but then I received a frantic call from Mrs. Higgins.
“Your father is in critical condition, Serena, you must come to the hospital now,” she cried. When I arrived, the doctor revealed that my father had been slowly poisoned with arsenic and lead over a long period.
I realized Silas wasn’t just after the money but was slowly murdering my father to clear his path to the throne. While I was at the office late that night, I received a cryptic email from someone calling themselves “The Observer.”
The email contained proof of Silas’s secret Swiss bank accounts and a flight plan for his escape after the next board meeting. This was the evidence I needed to destroy him, and I felt a ray of hope for the first time.
Mrs. Higgins suggested I clear out my father’s old study to find peace, and there I discovered a hidden wooden box. Inside was a sapphire butterfly brooch identical to mine and an old cassette tape labeled “For my daughter.”
I played the tape and heard my mother’s voice recording a message in a moment of great danger twenty years ago. She spoke of a secret contract between our family and the Mendoza family that required a child to be sacrificed.
Suddenly, the recording captured the sound of a door being kicked in and my mother’s final scream before the tape went silent. My heart pounded with horror as I realized my mother was murdered by someone she knew.
Julian arrived to comfort me and promised to help find the truth, but then his uncle, Robert Reed, arrived from London. Robert claimed that Julian and I were actually half siblings according to a secret DNA test he had performed.
The news shattered me because I had started to develop feelings for Julian, and now a blood barrier stood between us. We tried to remain professional while planning a trap for our common enemy, a man named Marcus Mendoza.
