Chapter 11 - The Marriage That Never EndedI read the marriage certificate over and over.
Daniel had told me Patricia joined the scheme later.
That was a lie.
She had been connected to my father from the beginning.
My mother had witnessed their divorce.
But there was something stranger.
The certificate was followed by another document.
A legal dissolution.
Except the final page had never been filed.
Meaning…
My father and Patricia had never legally divorced.
I looked at Ryan.
“My father was still married to Patricia when I was born?”
“Yes.”
“Then who was my mother?”
He looked at me with pain.
“Your mother was your stepmother.”
I laughed.
It was the kind of laugh people make when reality becomes too absurd to process.
“No.”
Ryan held my shoulders.
“Emily.”
I shoved him away.
“You expect me to believe my whole life is a lie?”
“I expect you to believe the documents.”
I stared at the files.
There were more.
Medical records.
A DNA test.
My father’s handwriting.
One sentence:
Emily must never know until the Hawthorne threat is gone.
I looked at Ryan.
“Who am I?”
He hesitated.
“Your father’s biological daughter.”
“And Patricia?”
“Your biological mother.”
The world disappeared.
I stumbled backward.
Patricia.
My mother.
The woman who had humiliated me at dinner.
The woman who had called my real mother worthless.
The woman who had spent years trying to control me without telling me why.
She was my birth mother.
I started shaking.
“That’s why she hated me.”
Ryan frowned.
“She doesn’t hate you.”
“She just…”
“She’s afraid of you.”
“Why?”
“Because you inherited everything she spent twenty-nine years trying to control.”
I sat on the floor.
“Why did she give me to my father?”
“She didn’t.”
Ryan’s voice softened.
“You were taken from her.”
“By who?”
He looked at the papers.
“Your father.”
“Why?”
“To protect you.”
“From Patricia?”
Ryan nodded.
“She had become dangerous.”
I covered my face.
All those years.
Every family gathering.
Every birthday.
Every time Patricia had looked at me.
She had known.
She had always known.
Then Ryan said something that made me look up.
“Emily…”
“What?”
“Your mother is not the only one who lied.”
I stared at him.
“What do you mean?”
“My biological father wasn’t Thomas.”
I froze.
“What?”
Ryan looked terrified.
“The DNA file was altered.”
“Then who is your father?”
He opened the last envelope.
Inside was a birth certificate.
One name had been scratched out.
Another written above it.
Daniel Mercer.
My stomach dropped.
Daniel.
The man who had helped my father.
The man who had warned me.
The man who had lied.
And suddenly every road led to the same place.
I whispered:
“Daniel is your father.”
Ryan nodded.
Then someone fired a gun through the window.
The glass exploded.
May you like
Ryan shoved me to the floor.
And a second bullet struck the file in my hand.
