Chapter 12 - THE LIE THAT COULD DESTROY THEM“No.”
Chloe stepped backward.
Victor didn't move.
Elena's words remained between them.
You've been looking at her all night.
Rebecca shook her head.
“Victor, she's lying.”
But Victor's face was unreadable.
Chloe looked desperately at her mother.
“Tell me that's impossible.”
Rebecca reached for her.
“Sweetheart, you are my daughter. I carried you. I gave birth to you.”
Gabriel approached Victor.
“Elena is trying to divide you. She knows exactly how to hurt you.”
Victor finally nodded.
“We need facts, not another one of her stories.”
Rebecca took an old medical bracelet from a small pocket sewn into the lining of her coat.
She had hidden it through years of captivity.
The bracelet bore Chloe's name.
Her birth date.
And Rebecca's hospital identification number.
“I kept this because they tried to destroy every record of Chloe's birth.”
Chloe examined it.
“Why?”
“Because she was the first child enrolled in Mercy's records. Elena wanted to make her identity disappear so nobody could trace the original research.”
Victor's eyes narrowed.
“Then where is the daughter Elena claims survived?”
Rebecca looked away.
Victor noticed immediately.
“You know.”
Rebecca began shaking.
“Her name was Sophia.”
Victor felt his chest tighten.
He and Elena had chosen that name together.
“Where is she?”
Rebecca hesitated.
“I helped deliver her. She was premature, but she survived the birth.”
Victor approached her.
“What happened afterward?”
“Elena arranged for the baby to be taken from the hospital. She told your father she'd died.”
Chloe held Rebecca's hand.
“Mom, tell him.”
Rebecca looked into Victor's eyes.
“I tried to trace Sophia. I found a foster-placement record from Wisconsin.”
Gabriel immediately entered the details into his tablet.
A birth date appeared.
A county agency.
A sealed adoption file.
Then a current photograph loaded.
Victor stared.
The young woman in the photograph had dark hair, gray eyes, and a familiar expression.
Chloe recognized her.
She had seen that face earlier that evening.
At Caldwell's table.
The quiet woman wearing a cream silk blouse.
The woman who had looked away while the senator threatened her.
Gabriel read the name aloud.
“Madeline Shaw.”
Victor's heart pounded.
May you like
His daughter had been sitting across from his enemy.
And according to the adoption records, Richard Caldwell had been paying her living expenses for eighteen years.
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