Chapter 7 - WHAT OUR FATHERS HAD DONE
Elias left the room.
He did not explain.
He simply walked out.
I found him ten minutes later on the terrace.
Snow had begun falling over Manhattan.
He stood without a coat, staring over the city.
I should have stayed inside.
My doctors had warned me about the cold.
But some truths are too large to receive through a closed door.
I stepped outside.
Elias heard me.
“You shouldn’t be out here.”
“Neither should you.”
He almost smiled.
Almost.
I stood beside him.
“Your sister knew my father.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
He was silent for a long time.
Then he spoke.
“Thomas Bennett saved her life once.”
I waited.
“Before her marriage?”
“During.”
He looked toward the snow.
“Her husband broke her wrist. She told everyone she fell.”
My stomach tightened.
“Your father noticed.”
“How?”
“He was overseeing elevator repairs in her apartment building.”
I stared at him.
“He helped her?”
“He drove her to a hospital. Paid for a hotel. Told her she could call him any time.”
“What happened?”
“She went back.”
I knew that story.
Too many women did.
Not because they were weak.
Because leaving an abusive man often required money, evidence, shelter, safety, and a version of yourself he had spent years destroying.
“She called my father again months later,” Elias said.
“Why?”
“Her husband found out she was pregnant.”
My chest tightened.
“He wanted her to terminate the pregnancy.”
I closed my eyes.
“She refused.”
“Thomas helped her prepare to leave.”
“But she died.”
Elias nodded.
“Her husband killed her before she could.”
The snow collected in his dark hair.
I realized now why he had reacted so fiercely beneath the overpass.
He hadn’t just seen me.
He had seen her.
“Your father testified.”
“Against the husband?”
“Yes.”
“Did he go to prison?”
“Twenty-five years.”
Elias swallowed.
“I didn’t know Thomas had stayed involved afterward.”
“Why would my father put your name in my trust?”
“Maybe because he trusted me.”
“You said he refused to sell you his company.”
“He did.”
“That doesn’t sound like trust.”
“It sounds exactly like Thomas.”
For the first time, Elias smiled.
“He trusted character more than contracts.”
I looked at the city.
Then at him.
“And somehow Grant got access to your genetic material.”
“Yes.”
“Does that mean…”
I could barely finish.
“Emma and Rose are biologically yours?”
Elias looked at me.
“If Price is telling the truth.”
My heart pounded.
This was too much.
A week ago, I had been a wife begging her husband not to throw her newborn daughters into winter.
Now I was standing above Manhattan beside a billionaire who might be their biological father because my dead father had somehow tied our lives together years earlier.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
Elias frowned.
“For what?”
“You didn’t choose this.”
“Neither did you.”
“They used you.”
“They used both of us.”
“What if you don’t want—”
He turned so quickly I stopped.
“Don’t.”
I stared at him.
His voice softened.
“Do not finish that sentence.”
“Elias.”
“I held them when their body temperatures were dropping.”
His jaw tightened.
“I counted Rose’s breaths in the SUV because I thought she was going to stop breathing.”
My eyes burned.
“I watched Emma’s heart rate on a monitor for fourteen hours.”
He looked toward the penthouse.
“I didn’t know whether they were mine.”
He met my eyes.
“And it didn’t matter.”
Something inside me cracked open.
Not romantic.
Not yet.
Something more basic.
Trust trying to exist after years without oxygen.
His phone rang.
Marcus.
Elias answered.
“Yes?”
His expression sharpened.
“When?”
He looked at me.
“We’re coming inside.”
“What happened?”
He ended the call.
“Grant has Rebecca Shaw.”
“What does that mean?”
“Marcus found them.”
Inside, security footage filled the study screen.
Rebecca entered a hotel in Lower Manhattan.
Grant followed five minutes later.
Then Charles Whitmore.
Marcus froze the video.
“We think they’re negotiating.”
“For what?”
“Rebecca’s cooperation.”
I stared at her image.
“She pretended to be my father’s daughter.”
“Yes.”
“What if she wasn’t pretending?”
Marcus looked at me.
“What?”
I pointed to her face.
“She looks like me.”
Silence.
“Not enough to be identical. But enough.”
Elias understood.
“Test her.”
“How?”
Marcus asked.
Elias looked at Dr. Price, still connected by video.
“Did Thomas Bennett have another child?”
Price shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
Marcus began digging.
Within an hour, he found a sealed family court filing from twenty-seven years earlier.
My father’s name.
Another woman’s name.
A child.
Rebecca.
My knees weakened.
“She’s my sister.”
“Half sister,” Marcus said.
The pieces rearranged themselves again.
Rebecca had not invented the connection.
She had been Thomas Bennett’s daughter too.
“Why wasn’t she in the trust?”
Marcus continued reading.
“She was adopted by her mother’s second husband. Thomas relinquished parental rights when she was four.”
I stared at Rebecca’s photograph.
“Did she know?”
“Probably.”
“Did my father know where she was?”
“Yes.”
A new ache formed.
Maybe my father had spent his life regretting two daughters.
One he couldn’t find.
One he had legally surrendered.
Whitmore had found the fracture and weaponized it.
“Can we reach her?” I asked.
Marcus nodded.
“We have a phone number.”
“Call her.”
Elias looked at me.
“Ava.”
“She’s my sister.”
“She is also working with Grant.”
“Maybe because Grant told her I stole something from her.”
Elias studied me.
I knew he wanted to protect me by controlling the situation.
But he didn’t.
He handed me the phone.
Rebecca answered on the fourth ring.
“Hello?”
My throat tightened.
“Rebecca?”
Silence.
“Who is this?”
“My name is Ava.”
The line went completely quiet.
Then she laughed bitterly.
“So he finally let you call me.”
“Who?”
“Elias Vance.”
“No one let me do anything.”
“That would be a first.”
I heard anger.
But underneath it, fear.
“Rebecca, Grant tried to kill me.”
Silence.
“What?”
“He left me beneath an overpass after men beat me.”
“That’s not what he said.”
“What did he say?”
“That you disappeared with the babies.”
“I didn’t.”
Her breathing changed.
I continued.
“He told you I stole your inheritance, didn’t he?”
Another silence.
“Yes.”
“I didn’t even know it existed.”
“He said Thomas spent twenty years searching for you while pretending I didn’t exist.”
The pain in her voice was real.
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t need your pity.”
“I’m not giving you pity.”
I gripped the phone.
“I’m telling you he lied to both of us.”
Rebecca said nothing.
I glanced at Elias.
“Did Grant tell you why he needs photographs of Rose’s birthmark?”
Her breathing stopped.
There it was.
“He told me it was for the custody case.”
“It’s for a child substitution.”
“No.”
“Rebecca, they used your baby.”
She made a small sound.
“What?”
“Whitmore’s clinic created false records tied to your daughter.”
“No.”
“Where is your baby?”
Silence.
“Rebecca?”
Her voice broke.
“With Grant.”
Every person in the room froze.
“He said she’d be safer with his nurse while we finalized the trust challenge.”
Elias grabbed Marcus’s shoulder and whispered something.
Marcus immediately ran.
I closed my eyes.
“Rebecca, listen to me.”
“What?”
“Do not tell them you spoke to me.”
“Ava—”
“Where are you?”
“The Whitmore Hotel.”
“Room?”
“Thirty-eight sixteen.”
“Stay calm.”
“Why?”
“Because Grant threw his own newborn daughters into the cold when they stopped being useful to him.”
Rebecca started crying.
“My baby is with him.”
“I know.”
“What do I do?”
I looked at Elias.
He nodded.
“Keep talking to me.”
Then a male voice sounded through Rebecca’s phone.
Distant.
Approaching.
Grant.
“Who are you talking to?”
Rebecca’s breathing stopped.
“Ava,” she whispered.
May you like
The line went dead.
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