Chapter 8 - MY MOTHER'S SECOND LIFE
Rose Miller wasn't my mother's birth name.
Of course it wasn't.
Her real name was Rose Dalton.
Former accountant.
Former girlfriend of Malcolm Vance.
I stopped breathing when Rachel told me.
Before Elias's mother.
Before the Vance empire hardened into legend.
My mother had known Malcolm.
Worked for him.
Then left after discovering criminal money moving through legitimate trusts.
Years later, she married my father.
Had me.
My father died when I was eight.
Then Rose became vulnerable.
Victor found her.
Not romantically.
Strategically.
He learned she knew details about Malcolm's trust.
He used debt, threats, and eventually blackmail to force her into helping decode succession rules.
She had not been working with Victor willingly.
Not completely.
But she had participated.
Why tell me she was dead?
Because once I married Victor, Rose realized what he planned.
She tried to reach me.
Victor intercepted it.
Then staged her death so I would stop looking.
Where was she now?
The storage archive held payment records.
Monthly transfers to a nursing facility in Pennsylvania.
Under another name.
We went.
Rose was alive.
Sixty-one.
Wheelchair.
Stroke survivor.
When she saw me, she broke down.
“Ava.”
I could not move.
Ten years of grief stood between us.
“You let me think you were dead.”
“No.”
Her voice was weak.
“He did.”
Still, she had stayed hidden after escaping Victor's direct control.
Why?
“He threatened you.”
Of course.
Everything was protection again.
I hated the word.
“You should have told me.”
“I know.”
No defense.
That mattered.
Rose explained Victor wanted a Vance descendant because the trust land sat over new infrastructure routes that could make connected shipping operations enormously valuable.
He married me after discovering Malcolm's old connection to her.
He knew my mother had trust knowledge.
Then he realized he could use me as legal cover.
Marriage tied me to him.
Children created the bloodline.
A perfect scheme.
Except he miscalculated.
Girls counted.
Isabella discovered everything.
Started sabotaging Victor quietly.
Moved Noah.
Copied records.
Contacted Rachel.
Then Victor found out.
He had Rose institutionalized under a false identity.
Not prison.
Medical captivity.
Then Rose looked at Elias.
“Your mother knew where I was.”
He went still.
Isabella had known.
Again.
Another secret.
But Rose said Isabella planned to get her out.
Cancer progressed too quickly.
She died before she could.
Then Rose gave me one final piece.
Victor had an inside man in Elias's organization.
Someone feeding him security movements.
The overpass wasn't chance.
Victor's men knew Elias's convoy route.
They dumped me there believing Elias might find me.
I stared.
“What?”
Victor had expected Elias to rescue us.
That was the plan.
Why?
Because once Elias sheltered Vance descendants, Victor could claim he had unlawfully taken another man's children.
Create legal conflict.
Trigger public investigation.
Force trust disclosure.
I had not ruined Victor's plan by surviving.
I had completed his first step.
Then Rose whispered the inside man's name.
Marcus Vance.
Elias's cousin.
May you like
His chief financial officer.
The man who controlled most of Elias's legitimate assets.
