Chapter 8 - THE NIGHT EVERYTHING CHANGED
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My mother finally told the truth.
When I was nine, my father discovered Victoria was alive.
He planned to take both daughters and escape the country.
But someone betrayed him.
My mother.
She had believed Victor would spare the family if she cooperated.
She was wrong.
Victor took my father.
He took Victoria.
And he ordered my mother to raise me under a false identity.
She obeyed.
For eighteen years, she lived with the guilt.
Then she disappeared.
Not because she died.
Because she had been hiding from Victor.
I looked at her.
“You let me believe you abandoned me.”
“I thought distance would keep you alive.”
“It didn't.”
“I know.”
Victoria appeared at the end of the corridor.
She looked at me.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
We were mirror images.
But her eyes carried twenty-nine years of rage.
“You got everything,” she said.
“I got nothing.”
“You had our father.”
“No.”
“You had our mother.”
“No.”
“You had Daniel.”
I looked at him.
“I had a husband who lied to me.”
Victoria laughed bitterly.
“You still defend him.”
“I don't.”
She raised the gun.
“Then prove it.”
She pointed toward the vault.
Inside was a final box.
“Open it.”
I inserted the key Noah had given me.
The box unlocked.
Inside was a recording.
My father's voice.
“Clara, if you're hearing this, Victor has failed.”
I began crying.
“I know you will believe everyone betrayed you. But there is one truth you must understand.”
The recording continued.
“Thorne Media was never mine.”
I looked at Victoria.
“It was created as a weapon.”
My father continued:
“And the weapon can only be destroyed by the two Blackwood heirs acting together.”
Victoria lowered the gun.
“No.”
The recording revealed one final document.
The true ownership structure.
The Blackwood sisters jointly controlled one hundred percent of the empire.
Not fifty-one.
One hundred.
Damian had never owned Thorne Media.
Victor had never owned it.
We did.
My father had designed the entire empire so that no single heir could seize it.
Then the recording ended.
Victoria whispered:
“So that's why he needed us separated.”
I nodded.
“Because together, we could destroy everything.”
Suddenly every screen in the vault turned red.
A countdown appeared.
10:00
Daniel stared.
“Victor activated the purge.”
Marcus asked:
“What purge?”
Daniel answered:
“If the trust recognizes both sisters…”
He looked at me.
“Every secret Victor ever collected will be released.”
Ten minutes.
Every politician.
Every corporation.
Every criminal connection.
Every family secret.
The entire country could be shaken.
Victoria looked at me.
“What do we do?”
I looked at the countdown.
“We finish what Dad started.”
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Then the vault doors locked.
And someone began pounding from the other side.
