Chapter 18 - The Second Heiress
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The call ended five minutes later.
I set the black satellite phone back onto the silver tray held by Dominic.
Marcus stood up from his chair, walking over to stand beside my seat, his brow furrowed with concern.
"A sister?" Marcus asked softly. "Evelyn... did your father ever hint at this?"
"Never," I said, staring into the flickering embers of the hearth. "My father was a man of absolute secrets. He built an empire on hidden layers. If he hid a child, he did it for a reason."
Dominic tapped his tablet screen, his eyes scanning rapidly through our internal family archives.
"Ms. Vance," Dominic said, his face grave. "I am running an immediate cross-reference of your father’s personal travel logs from thirty years ago."
"What do you see?"
"Thirty years ago, your father spent six months in Chicago," Dominic reported, looking up with dark, serious eyes. "He was working on the construction of the original Municipal Financial Center."
My mind raced.
Chicago. The very city where Adrian Cross had built his firm. The very city where I had lived for four years as a quiet wife.
"Dominic," I said, standing up from my chair with absolute purpose. "Run a deep-level DNA query against all public records, medical registries, and corporate filings linked to Cross Construction's former staff."
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"You think she was close to Adrian?" Marcus asked, astonished.
"My father didn't leave things to chance," I said, my eyes narrowing. "When Adrian married me, he thought he was pulling a helpless woman out of obscurity. What if someone inside his circle was watching us the entire time?"
