“EMPTY YOUR PURSE ON THE TABLE, YOU OLD THIEF.” THE MAFIA BOSS’S FIANCÉE HUMILIATED THE SEVENTY-SIX-YEAR-OLD WOMAN WHO HAD RAISED HIM IN FRONT OF TWENTY DINNER GUESTS—BUT WHEN I PICKED UP A SMALL PHOTOGRAPH FROM THE FLOOR, THE MOST FEARED MAN IN NEW YORK LOOKED AT HIS BRIDE-TO-BE AND ASKED, “HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN LYING TO ME?” -

Chapter 5 – THE BLOODLINE

The drive back to the estate felt like a lifetime.

Toby slept in the backseat, his head resting safely in Mama Ruth’s lap. Leo sat beside Adrian, the two brothers speaking in hushed, emotional tones, piecing together the twelve stolen years.

Leo explained how Sloane had ambushed him, keeping him drugged and locked in a private facility to use his son as leverage over the Valenti empire’s shadow accounts.

When we pulled through the iron gates, the estate was swarming with Adrian’s loyal men. Sloane’s rogue guards were tied up on the wet lawn.

Dominic met us at the door. He handed Adrian a thick, yellowed envelope.

“We cracked Sloane’s private wall safe,” Dominic said. “She wasn’t hiding money. She was hiding this.”

Adrian ripped the envelope open.

Inside was a stack of old birth certificates and property deeds from forty years ago. Adrian read the first page, his brow furrowing in deep confusion.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Adrian muttered. “These deeds show that my father didn’t build this estate. He bought it from a family that went bankrupt.”

“Keep reading,” Dominic said grimly.

Adrian flipped to the next page. He stopped. His eyes slowly lifted from the paper and locked onto me.

“Claire,” Adrian whispered.

I stepped forward, my stomach tying into knots. “Yes, sir?”

Adrian handed me the document.

It was a property deed for the very mansion we were standing in. But the original owner’s signature at the bottom wasn’t a Valenti.

It was Thomas Morgan.

My father.

“Your father didn’t just lose his money, Claire,” Adrian said softly. “My father stole this empire from him. Sloane knew. She’s been blackmailing my family with this secret for years.”

I stared at the paper, the world spinning. The grand chandeliers, the marble floors—it wasn’t just a place I scrubbed for minimum wage. It was my stolen legacy.

Before I could speak, a slow, mocking clap echoed from the top of the grand staircase.

We all looked up.

Sloane was standing on the landing. She looked ruined—her dress torn, her makeup smeared—but she was holding a silver lighter.

And she was standing directly over a massive puddle of gasoline that soaked the antique rugs.

“If I can’t have this house,” Sloane smiled, sparking the lighter, “then the true heir will burn with it.”