CHAPTER NINE *SOPHIA*

CHAPTER NINE

*SOPHIA*

Eleanor died at 3 AM. I was working on the painting when Isabelle called.

"It's done," she said. "Alexander's grandmother is gone."

I set down my brush. "How do you know?"

"Marcus told me. He's still plugged into that world." She paused. "Are you okay?"

"I should feel something. Victory, closure, something. But I just feel empty."

"That's normal. Revenge doesn't fill the holes people leave in you."

After we hung up, I stared at the canvas. The screaming woman looked back at me, trapped in her moment of agony forever. I picked up a palette knife and scraped half her face away. Started over with different colors, softer lines. Maybe she didn't need to scream anymore.

My mother called at dawn.

"Sophia, we need to talk about Eleanor's will."

"I don't care about her will."

"You should. She left you something."

That made me pause. "What?"

"I don't know. The lawyer said you need to be present for the reading. It's tomorrow at the Sterling estate."

"I'm not going."

"Sophia"

"She's dead. She can't hurt anyone anymore. That's all I wanted." I hung up before she could argue.

But the call bothered me. Eleanor leaving me something felt like a trap, one last manipulation from beyond the grave. She'd spent my first life destroying me. Why would she give me anything now?

I went to see Isabelle at her gallery.

"You think it's a trick?" she asked.

"Everything Eleanor did was a trick. Even dying she timed it perfectly to make Alexander feel guilty, to make him vulnerable."

"Or she's just dead and you're looking for patterns in chaos." Isabelle handed me coffee. "But I do think you should go to the reading. Not for her. For you. To see what her final move was."

"What if it's something horrible? A letter detailing everything I did, proof that I manipulated the kidnapping situation"

"Did you manipulate it?"

"I knew something would happen. Not specifically the kidnapping, but I knew the Zhao Group would move against Robert Sterling. I could have warned them earlier, been more direct. Instead I let it play out so Alexander would trust me."

Isabelle considered this. "You let a dangerous situation unfold to gain advantage. That's morally gray. But you also saved Robert's life. You stopped a criminal organization. Those things matter too."

"They don't cancel out the manipulation."

"No. But they make you human instead of a monster." She touched my arm. "Go to the reading. Face whatever she left you. Then decide who you want to be going forward."

The Sterling estate was subdued when I arrived the next day. Black wreaths on the doors, staff moving quietly through halls. Alexander met me at the entrance.

"You came."

"Your grandmother apparently had a final performance planned. I'm curious."

He looked exhausted, hollowed out. "She had a folder with your name on it. The lawyer wouldn't tell me what's inside."

"Probably a list of my sins. Evidence of my manipulation. A last attempt to poison you against me."

"Would that bother you? If I knew everything?"

I met his eyes. "I already told you everything. If you choose to believe her version over mine, that's your choice."

The reading was in Eleanor's study. Robert was there, still weak but insisting on attending. Victoria sat in the corner looking uncomfortable. Various cousins and associates filled the other chairs. The lawyer, an ancient man who'd probably served Eleanor for decades, opened a leather portfolio.

"Eleanor Sterling's last will and testament is straightforward for most beneficiaries," he began, then proceeded to list charitable donations, bequests to staff, family heirlooms distributed among relatives.

Then: "To Sophia Chen, I leave the contents of safe deposit box 847 at First National Bank, along with this letter." He held up a sealed envelope. "To be read by Miss Chen privately."

Everyone stared at me. I took the envelope with steady hands.

"That's it?" Alexander asked.

"The box requires Miss Chen's signature and this key to access." The lawyer handed me an old brass key. "Mrs. Sterling was very specific that no one else be present when it's opened."

I left the study, Alexander following.

"You're not opening the letter here?"

"No. Whatever poison she put in there, I'm reading it alone."

"Sophia"

"Stop. You don't get to be there for every hard moment in my life. Some things I handle myself."

I drove to the bank, letter and key burning in my purse. The safe deposit box was large, old-fashioned. Inside were three items: a leather journal, a USB drive, and a smaller sealed envelope.

I opened the smaller envelope first. Inside was a check for ten million dollars made out to me, dated two days before Eleanor's stroke.

The letter was in Eleanor's precise handwriting:

Sophia,

If you're reading this, I'm dead and you've won. Congratulations. You played the game better than I expected.

The journal contains documentation of every crime Catherine Chen and I committed over the past twenty years. The USB has financial records, communications, everything prosecutors would need. I'm giving you the choice I never gave you before: destroy your mother or protect her.

The money is yours regardless. Consider it payment for the entertainment. You were a better opponent than you were a granddaughter-in-law.

The truth is, I respected you more in these last months than I ever did when you were trying to please me. You became dangerous, focused, ruthless. Everything I tried to beat out of you, you became anyway. Just not for me. For yourself.

Alexander will hate you when he learns the full truth. The journal documents your manipulation of the situation with his father. Your calculated decisions, your cold assessment of risks. You let Robert get kidnapped when you could have prevented it. You used his father's life as leverage to gain my grandson's trust.

But Alexander is weak. He'll forgive you eventually because he's too much like his father. So I'm giving you what you really wanted: proof that your mother is a criminal, and the power to destroy her completely.

Use it or don't. But know that whatever you choose, you're more Sterling than Chen. More like me than you'll ever admit.

Eleanor

My hands shook as I opened the journal. Page after page of meticulous documentation. Bribes, blackmail, illegal deals. Catherine's signature on half of them.

I could destroy her. End her political career, send her to prison, take everything she'd ever valued.

I closed the journal and sat in the small private room, staring at ten million dollars and the complete destruction of my mother's life.

Eleanor was right. I'd become like her. Calculating, manipulative, ruthless.

The question was whether I'd stay that way.