INICIAR SESIÓNYOU GAVE BIRTH TO ALEXANDER STERLING.Aria read the message three times before her fingers went numb.The photograph shook in her hand. A woman with Aria's face lay in a hospital bed, her dark hair spread across a white pillow. A newborn rested against her chest. The woman's left hand curved around the baby, revealing the same crescent-shaped birthmark Aria had carried since childhood.It was her face.Her scar.Her hand.But the hospital bracelet on the woman's wrist carried a date from eighteen years before Aria was born."No."The word escaped her like a broken breath.Julian snatched the phone from her hand. His eyes moved across the photograph, then the message beneath it.For several seconds, he said nothing.Then he crushed the phone in his fist."Whoever sent this is trying to break you.""What if they're not lying?""Look at me, Aria."She couldn't."What if I have forgotten something? What if Richard knew? What if my entire life has been built around a lie so enormous that I
“Don't let her leave!”Julian's shout shattered the silence at the cemetery gates.Two police officers rushed toward the woman in the red dress, but she didn't run. She simply stood beside the black car, holding the photograph of the newborn baby as if she had been waiting eighteen years for this exact moment.Aria couldn't move.The woman's face was hers.The same eyes. The same mouth. The same small mark on the left hand.And the same smile she had seen in her nightmares since the woman who looked like Victoria had tried to kill Thomas.“Who are you?” Aria demanded.The woman tilted her head.“You really don't recognize me?”“I have never seen you before in my life!”“Of course you haven't.” Her smile faded. “They made sure of that.”Julian stepped in front of Aria.“Put the photograph down. Raise your hands where the officers can see them.”The woman looked at him with open disgust.“Still giving orders. Still pretending you're in control.”“Who are you?”She lifted the photograph.
“WHO GAVE THEM PERMISSION TO DIG UP MY GRAVE?”Aria's scream tore through the hospital corridor.Julian stared at the cemetery record on her phone. His signature sat beneath the exhumation order, precise and unmistakable.He hadn't signed it.But someone had used his name.“Give me the phone,” he said.Aria pulled it away. “Don't you dare tell me this is another forgery without explaining how someone keeps getting access to your signature!”“I'm not asking you to believe me blindly.”“Then explain it!”Julian held her gaze. “I never authorized an exhumation. I didn't even know there was a grave registered under your name.”She looked down at the record again. The name beside the grave was hers. The date matched the day Thomas had supposedly died.A child had been buried under her identity eighteen years ago.Someone had just ordered that grave opened.And Julian's signature had made it possible.Detective Mensah stepped between them.“Enough. Neither of you is leaving until we establi
The gun fired, and Aria watched the only man who knew the truth about her birth jerk violently beneath the hospital sheets.“DAD!”Julian slammed into the woman before she could fire again. The second shot struck the ceiling, sending plaster raining onto the floor. A nurse screamed in the corridor, and the heart monitor beside Thomas's bed shrieked as his body went rigid.Aria lunged toward him.Blood spread beneath his bandages.“No, no, no!” She pressed both hands against his chest, desperate to stop the bleeding. “Thomas, look at me! You can't leave me now!”Thomas's eyes fluttered.His lips moved, but no sound came out.Behind her, Julian struggled with the woman. She was stronger than she looked, twisting beneath his grip and driving her knee into his stomach. Julian staggered, but he caught her gun hand before she could aim again.The pistol clattered across the floor.She kicked it beneath the bed.Then she smiled at him.“You still don't understand, do you, Julian?”He grabbed
The coffin had been empty.Aria stared at the photograph in her hands, and the hospital corridor seemed to tilt beneath her feet.IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHICH TWIN SURVIVED, ASK WHICH ONE WAS BURIED.Thomas Vale had written those words before Alexander shot him. Or had someone written them for him? The signature looked genuine, but after everything they had uncovered, even familiar handwriting could no longer be trusted.Julian snatched the photograph from her trembling fingers.“Where did this come from?” he demanded.The nurse took a step backward. “A man left it at reception. He said it was urgent.”“What man?”“I didn't see his face clearly. He wore a surgical mask and a dark cap.”“Did he say anything else?”The nurse shook her head. “Only that the message had to reach Miss Bennett before midnight.”Julian checked his watch.Eleven fifty-nine.“Get security to lock down the entrances,” he ordered. “Nobody leaves until the police have questioned them.”The nurse hurried away.Aria ba
The second bullet had barely stopped echoing when Thomas Vale’s blood spilled between Julian’s fingers.“NO!” Aria screamed.Thomas’s head rolled to one side. His eyes were open, but the man who had finally promised to explain her entire life was no longer looking at her.Above them, footsteps pounded away into the darkness.Alexander was escaping.Julian barely glanced toward the stairs. He pressed both hands against Thomas’s chest, trying to stop the bleeding, his face drained of color.“Stay with us,” Julian ordered. “Thomas, look at me!”Thomas’s lips moved.Aria dropped to her knees beside them. Her hands shook so badly that she could barely touch her father’s face.“Please,” she whispered. “You can't do this. You just found me.”Thomas’s fingers twitched against Julian’s wrist.Then his eyes rolled back.“Call an ambulance!” Aria screamed.“There’s no signal down here,” Julian snapped. He looked toward the stairs. “Aria, get my phone. Now!”She scrambled toward the fallen flashl







