CHAPTER 14 The Daughter He Never Had
The words struck the room like a lightning bolt.
"Hello, my daughter. I've finally found you."
Emma recoiled so quickly that she stumbled into Clara.
"No!"
Evelyn threw herself in front of her daughter.
"You stay away from her!"
Richard Sterling did not move.
He stood in the doorway with the calm posture of a man entering his own library.
His charcoal suit was spotless despite the inferno consuming Sterling Manor above them.
Not a speck of ash clung to him.
Not a wrinkle marked his sleeves.
He looked less like a fugitive...
And more like the owner of everything beneath the estate.
Including the people inside it.
Jonathan leveled his pistol.
"One more step."
Richard looked at the weapon and smiled.
"You've pointed guns at me three times in your life."
"You never fired."
Jonathan's finger tightened around the trigger.
"This time is different."
"I know."
Richard sighed.
"You only have three bullets."
Jonathan's eyes widened.
Richard shouldn't have known that.
Unless...
He had been watching them the entire time.
Evelyn's voice shook with rage.
"Emma is not your daughter."
Richard nodded.
"Biologically?"
"No."
"But in every other way..."
He looked at Emma with unsettling tenderness.
"...she was always meant to be."
Emma clutched her mother's arm.
"I don't even know you."
Richard's expression softened.
"I know."
"That was Arthur's doing."
Leo stepped forward.
"My father hid her from you."
"He did."
"Because he knew you'd destroy her."
Richard shook his head.
"No."
"I wanted to protect her."
Jonathan barked a bitter laugh.
"By murdering everyone around her?"
Richard looked at him almost pityingly.
"You still confuse protection with kindness."
Clara studied Richard carefully.
Something had changed.
His voice carried none of the fury she had expected.
Only certainty.
That frightened her more than anger ever could.
Richard slowly reached into his coat.
Jonathan raised the pistol higher.
"Don't."
Richard stopped.
Then, very deliberately, he withdrew...
Not a weapon.
An old leather wallet.
He opened it.
Inside rested a faded photograph.
He held it toward Emma.
"This was taken forty-two years ago."
Emma hesitated before accepting it.
The picture showed a young woman standing in a flower garden.
She looked astonishingly familiar.
Same dark eyes.
Same smile.
Same face.
Only older.
"Who is she?" Emma whispered.
"My mother."
Richard answered.
"Her name was Abigail Carter."
Emma looked again.
She wasn't imagining it.
The resemblance was undeniable.
Evelyn shook her head violently.
"Don't listen to him."
Richard ignored her.
"My mother had a daughter before she married into the Sterling family."
Jonathan frowned.
"What?"
Richard nodded.
"The child disappeared."
"For decades..."
"We believed she had died."
He looked directly at Emma.
"We were wrong."
Clara felt something click into place.
"Evelyn..."
She turned slowly.
"Your mother..."
Elizabeth Carter.
Emma's grandmother.
Evelyn's mother.
Richard's expression remained unreadable.
"You've almost solved it."
Harold stepped toward the computer terminal.
The DNA report was still running.
More information appeared.
He quickly scanned the new lines.
His face changed.
"Wait..."
Everyone looked at him.
Harold read aloud.
Maternal Lineage Confirmed
Subject Richard Sterling: Carter lineage verified
Subject Emma Carter: Carter lineage verified
Then he frowned.
"There should be another name."
He typed several commands.
The terminal beeped.
A hidden record unlocked.
One final profile appeared.
Harold whispered,
"Oh..."
Clara leaned closer.
"What is it?"
Harold slowly turned the monitor toward everyone.
At the top of the screen were two words.
Maternity Record
Below it:
Mother: Elizabeth Carter
Then two names.
Not one.
Two.
Child A: Evelyn Carter
Child B: Richard Carter
The room fell silent.
Evelyn stared at the screen.
"No..."
Her knees nearly gave way.
Jonathan caught her before she fell.
Richard quietly closed his eyes.
"I wondered how long it would take."
Leo frowned.
"I don't understand."
Jonathan answered, almost unable to believe the words himself.
"Evelyn..."
"...Richard..."
"...are twins."
Emma looked at her mother.
Then at Richard.
Her breathing became shallow.
"He's..."
"My uncle?"
No one spoke.
Evelyn slowly looked toward Richard.
For the first time in decades...
She truly saw him.
The scar beneath his left ear.
The small birthmark near his temple.
Details she remembered from childhood.
Tears rolled down her cheeks.
"They told me..."
"...you died."
Richard smiled sadly.
"They told me the same about you."
Clara felt the room spinning.
Everything they had believed was collapsing.
Richard hadn't hunted the Carter family because he hated them.
He had been born into it.
He hadn't erased his own past.
Someone had erased it for him.
Jonathan lowered the pistol slightly.
"If that's true..."
"Who did this?"
Richard looked toward the ceiling.
"The first Sterling."
"The man who stole everything."
Before anyone could ask another question...
The ancient computer emitted a shrill warning tone.
The green screen flashed red.
One message repeated over and over.
WARNING
PRIMARY FILE CORRUPTED
Harold hurried to the keyboard.
"The database's deleting itself!"
Files vanished one after another.
Photographs.
Birth records.
DNA reports.
Everything.
Someone had triggered a wipe.
Richard's expression changed for the first time.
"No..."
He rushed toward the terminal.
"Stop it!"
Jonathan grabbed his arm.
"You knew this would happen."
Richard shook him off.
"I didn't trigger it!"
The deletion accelerated.
12%...
28%...
41%...
Emma suddenly noticed a blinking folder that had not yet disappeared.
Its label read:
FOUNDER'S CONFESSION
Without thinking, she clicked it.
An audio recording began playing through hidden speakers.
A man's voice filled the chamber.
Old.
Weak.
Unfamiliar.
"My name..."
"...is William Sterling."
"I am the man who created this lie."
Everyone froze.
The voice continued.
"If you are hearing this..."
"...then every generation after mine has already paid the price for my sins."
The recording crackled.
Then William uttered a sentence that shattered every remaining certainty.
"There was never a Sterling family."
The audio abruptly cut out.
The monitor went black.
Every light in the chamber died.
And somewhere in the darkness...
A child began crying.
A child...
May you like
Who wasn't in the room.
END OF CHAPTER 14
