Chapter 3
At the hospital, I learned the first lie.
Adrian had not gone to London.
His flight had been canceled before takeoff.
He had called home.
Nobody answered.
Then he checked the estate cameras from his phone.
That was how he saw them dragging me across the hall.
That was how he called Elias Thorne.
Not the police first.
Elias.
Because Adrian knew something I did not.
Elias had once been my father’s closest friend.
When I heard that, I sat up so fast the nurse rushed toward me.
“My father?”
Elias stood near the window, hands clasped behind his back.
“You were very young when he died.”
I swallowed.
“My mother told me he had no friends like you.”
“She was trying to keep you away from my world.”
“What world?”
Elias turned.
“The one your husband’s family belongs to.”
My skin went cold.
The Whitmores were old money.
Real estate.
Private banking.
Politics.
They hosted charity galas and smiled in magazines.
“What are you saying?”
Elias’s voice remained calm.
“Your father did not die in a simple boating accident.”
I stared at him.
The monitor beside me beeped faster.
“My father drowned.”
“Yes.”
His eyes hardened.
“After Charles Whitmore destroyed him.”
My mouth went dry.
A nurse stepped in, but Elias lifted one hand.
“She needs rest.”
“No,” I said.
“I need the truth.”
He looked at me for a long moment.
Then he pulled a folded document from inside his coat.
“I promised your father I would give this to you only if the Whitmores ever came for you.”
My hands shook as I took it.
On the front was my father’s handwriting.
To Clara, when the wolves stop pretending.
I stopped breathing.
Elias’s voice softened.
“Your father knew they would one day find a way back to you.”
“Why?”
“Because you inherited something they have spent twenty years trying to steal.”
Before I could ask what, the door opened.
Adrian walked in.
His face was ruined with fear.
“Clara.”
For one heartbeat, I wanted to run into his arms.
Then I remembered his last name.
I looked at the letter in my hands.
“Did you know?”
His face went pale.
“Know what?”
May you like
I lifted the paper.
“That your family destroyed mine.”
