Chapter 8
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Chapter 8
The screen flickered, then moved to the next file.
This one was different. Not a hotel lobby. Not another payment trail. It was a cropped still from a private residence camera-faces blurred where
my attorneys had insisted, but unmistakable in what mattered.
On the nightstand behind Mara sat a framed wedding photograph.
Julian Vance and his wife.
Ivy Cross.
The name dropped into the room like a stone into still water. Everyone knew exactly who she was: real estate heir turned media powerhouse, one of Chicago’s most feared and respected women.
The silence that followed wasn’t shock anymore. It was recognition. The kind that told everyone this had just become a landmine.
Reporters surged forward, cameras flashing wildly. Mara stumbled backward, her heel crunching over the broken champagne flute. Shards scattered like tiny knives across the marble.
I stood beneath the giant screen and watched her, my heart beating steady and cold. A dark, quiet satisfaction unfurled in my chest-sharp as broken glass, heavy as the years of betrayal I had carried. Finally.
In my last life, they said Mara died in a tragic car accident. Caleb mourned her for years. Declan nearly killed him over it. No one ever knew the
truth.
Not this time.
I had spent months after my return digging through every shadow-travel records, shell accounts, hotel logs. Every thread led back to Julian Vance. This time, I wouldn’t let her die with her secrets intact.
Caleb stood frozen a few feet away, his face drained of color, the champagne glass trembling in his hand. The perfect armor was cracking right
before my eyes.
Declan looked like someone had slapped him. His hand twitched toward his pocket, then stopped. Helpless. For once, he had no control.
Mara suddenly pointed at me, her finger shaking violently.
“Fake!” she screamed, voice cracking with raw desperation. “All of it is fake! Ella made this up to ruin me!”
Tears poured down her face-fast, practiced, but this time laced with genuine terror. She stumbled toward the broken glass and reached for a large shard, fingers closing around it.
“If you all believe her, then what’s the point of living?!”
Caleb caught her wrist just in time. Declan stepped forward on instinct, hand hovering near her shoulder. Between the two men who had once fought over her, Mara sank to the floor, covering her face as loud, ugly sobs tore from her throat.
“Ella,” she choked out, “you can hate me, but to use something this filthy against your own sister-”
My mother rushed forward and pulled Mara into her arms.
“Ella Vance!” Mother snapped, glaring at me with pure venom. “Have you lost all decency?”
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Chapter 8
Father stood behind her, face twisted with rage. To fabricate something like this in front of the press? What kind of monster have we
The murmurs shifted again-uncertain, uneasy Maybe it is fake. The timing is too convenient
A slow, cold smile curved my lips. The fire in my chest burned brighter, clearer. No more hiding. No more swallowing pain for the sake of “family”
I reached into my blazer and held up a small encrypted drive between two fingers, letting the lights catch it.
“You don’t trust the images?” My voice rang out, calm and steady despite the storm inside me. “My attorneys have the full files. Metadata Hotel
records. Payment trails. Chain-of-custody reports. Everything.”
Mara’s sobbing hitched for half a second. I saw the calculation flash behind her tears.
I looked down at her-kneeling on the floor surrounded by broken glass, mascara streaking her perfect face
Would you like me to release those too?”
Mother held Mara tighter. “Ella, listen to yourself. Your sister is already-”
She stopped.
The crowd was parting.
A woman in a sleek black tailored dress walked through the center of the ballroom, heels clicking with deliberate, unhurried precision. Elegant.
Controlled. Terrifyingly calm.
Ivy Cross.
She stopped beside me, glanced once at the frozen image on the screen-Mara in her bedroom, the wedding photo clearly visible on the nightstand-then turned to the reporters.
1 provided the original files.”
Her voice was quiet, yet the entire room fell into a different kind of silence. The silence of power.
“The cameras were in my private residence. The footage is mine. The stills have been redacted for privacy. The originals have been authenticated by my legal team.”
Mara stared up at Ivy like a cornered animal.
Ivy finally looked down at her. Not with rage. Not even disgust. Just cold, exhausted boredom.
You said the evidence was fake?”
Mara’s lips trembled. “I… I was drunk. That night, I was drunk. I didn’t know what I was doing.”
Ivy’s expression didn’t flicker. “One night might be a mistake,” she said, voice like ice. “Seventeen visits to my home is not”
The number dropped like a guillotine.
Seventeen.
The room erupted again.
Mara’s face went deathly white. Caleb’s hand fell away from her wrist. He stepped back, then again, putting distance between them as if she burned Declan turned his face away, unable to look at her any longer.
They Chose Her,l Built an Empi…
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Chapter 8
For the first time in two lifetimes, Mara’s performance had completely collapsed.
And for the first time that night, my mother’s arms loosened around her.
I stood there, ribs still aching, wrist still braced, heart pounding with a mixture of fierce triumph and hollow grief for the sister I had once tried so
desperately to love.
This time, I didn’t look away.
This time, I let the whole world see exactly who we had all become
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