Chapter 4 - THE SECRET IN THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE
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Nobody spoke.
The silence was worse than any gunfire.
I looked at Silas.
He looked at my mother.
“You're telling me Elena is my sister?”
My mother shook her head.
“No.”
She took a breath.
“Not biologically.”
I felt a strange sense of relief.
Then confusion.
“Then what did Julian mean?”
My mother sat down.
“Your father was a Mercer.”
Silas stiffened.
“Your mother married a Ross. But before that marriage, she had a daughter.”
Me.
My entire identity seemed to crack apart.
Silas stared at me.
“So you're saying…”
“You are the daughter of Silas's father's first marriage.”
He looked at me.
“We share a father.”
“No.”
My mother's voice was firm.
“You share nothing by blood.”
Silas exhaled.
I didn't know whether to cry or scream.
“But why would Julian say that?”
“Because he knows one thing you don't.”
My mother turned toward me.
“You were adopted by the Ross family.”
I stared.
“No.”
“You were born Elena Mercer.”
Silas took one step backward.
The room changed.
My father's face appeared in my memory.
His hands.
His voice.
The way he always called me “my little star.”
He wasn't my father.
He had been the man who raised me.
My biological father was Silas's father.
And the man who had arranged his murder was Julian's grandfather.
The three families had been connected from the beginning.
Silas looked at the birth certificate.
“Why didn't my father tell me?”
“Because he believed you would protect Elena.”
“From whom?”
“The Crofts.”
I stared at the sleeping babies.
“Why did they marry me into their family?”
My mother closed her eyes.
“Because Julian was ordered to.”
A cold sensation moved through my body.
“He didn't marry me for love.”
“No.”
“He knew who I was.”
“Yes.”
“He knew about the Covenant.”
“Yes.”
“He knew I'd have daughters.”
“No.”
Her face changed.
“That's the part he didn't know.”
A horrible thought entered my mind.
“Then why did he panic when he saw them?”
My mother looked toward the crib.
“Because both girls have the same birthmark.”
Silas stared at the babies.
“What does that mean?”
My mother whispered:
“It is the mark of the original Harbor heir.”
I looked at my daughters.
One had a tiny crescent-shaped birthmark near her collarbone.
The other had the same mark near her shoulder.
Both had been born with it.
“The Crofts thought the Covenant would pass to a single child,” my mother explained.
“That's why they wanted a son.”
I swallowed.
“But there are two.”
“Yes.”
“And both have the mark.”
My mother nodded.
“The old agreement contains a clause nobody knew about.”
Silas approached the crib.
“What clause?”
“The trust cannot be controlled unless both daughters reach adulthood.”
I felt a terrifying weight settle over me.
Julian couldn't simply steal one child.
He needed both.
Silas looked at me.
“He will never stop.”
“No.”
My mother shook her head.
“He won't have to.”
Silas turned.
“What does that mean?”
My mother's voice dropped.
“Because Julian isn't acting alone.”
A phone rang.
Kaelen answered.
His expression changed.
“Boss…”
“What?”
“There's been an explosion at the Croft estate.”
Silence.
“Julian?”
Kaelen looked at the screen.
“Dead.”
I stared.
“Dead?”
“His security team is gone too.”
My mother stood.
“No.”
“What?”
She looked toward the window.
“They didn't kill Julian.”
She whispered:
“They wanted him to disappear.”
Silas's phone buzzed.
One encrypted message.
Three words:
THE REAL HEIR ARRIVES.
Then another message.
A photograph.
A man standing beside two empty baby bassinets.
May you like
My blood froze.
The girls were gone.
