Chapter 7 - THE WOMAN WHO LOOKED LIKE ME
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The security screens displayed a woman walking through the underground corridor.
She looked exactly like me.
Same face.
Same dark hair.
Same scar beneath the left eyebrow.
I couldn't move.
Noah stared at the screen.
“That's impossible.”
Marcus zoomed in.
The woman turned toward the camera.
She smiled.
Then she mouthed two words.
Hello, sister.
My mother collapsed into a chair.
Daniel whispered:
“Victoria.”
I looked at him.
“Who is Victoria?”
He answered:
“Your twin.”
My entire body went numb.
My mother covered her face.
“There were two babies.”
The truth came out in fragments.
I had been born first.
Victoria had been born eleven minutes later.
Victor Thorne discovered that the Blackwood Trust required a single recognized heir.
So he ordered the hospital to erase Victoria.
But a nurse saved her.
Victoria grew up believing I had stolen her life.
Victor eventually found her.
And instead of killing her, he trained her.
He taught her everything about the empire.
Everything about manipulation.
Everything about revenge.
“She thinks you took her inheritance,” Daniel said.
“I didn't even know she existed.”
“I know.”
“Then why is she here?”
A voice came through the speakers.
“Because you took everything from me.”
Victoria.
She continued:
“Your name.”
“Your family.”
“Your childhood.”
“Your husband.”
I looked at Daniel.
Victoria laughed.
“You married the man Victor created to control you.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“I tried to protect her.”
“You failed.”
The lights went out.
A gunshot echoed through the corridor.
Noah grabbed Bianca.
Marcus pulled me behind a steel door.
Then the emergency lights came on.
Daniel was bleeding.
He had been shot in the shoulder.
“Damian!”
He looked at me.
“Run.”
I refused.
“Not without you.”
He stared at me.
After five years of lies, his eyes finally looked honest.
“I should have told you everything.”
“Yes.”
“I was afraid you'd hate me.”
“I do.”
He nodded.
“I know.”
Victoria's voice returned.
“Clara, come to the vault alone.”
I stepped forward.
Marcus grabbed my wrist.
“Don't.”
I looked at him.
“If she wants me, she'll keep coming.”
My mother whispered:
“She doesn't want to kill you.”
“What does she want?”
My mother looked at Victoria's photograph.
“She wants you to remember.”
“Remember what?”
My mother answered:
“The night your father disappeared.”
And suddenly I remembered something from childhood.
A locked basement.
A man's scream.
And my mother saying:
Never let Clara see her sister.
I looked at her.
“You knew.”
She began to cry.
“Yes.”
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The deepest betrayal hadn't come from Damian.
It had come from my own mother.
