The Innocent Sister Act

Selene’s performance began before the police crossed the room.

She curled around her stomach and sobbed that I had threatened to take her child. A red mark had appeared on her wrist—one she must have created before we arrived.

The reporters recorded everything.

“Elara said the baby would ruin her marriage,” Selene cried. “She told me no one would believe me because she controls the Mercer family.”

I remained where I was.

In my first life, her tears had made me doubt my own memories. Now I studied the timing of every breath.

“Are you injured?” an officer asked.

“My stomach hurts.”

An ambulance was summoned.

Lucien stepped away from Selene instead of rushing to comfort her.

She noticed.

“Lucien, tell them what she did.”

His expression was unreadable.

“Tell them what?” he asked.

“That Elara has been persecuting me since the wedding.”

“You impersonated her to move forty million dollars.”

The reporters fell silent.

Selene stared at him.

“What are you doing?”

“For once, I am not cleaning up your lie.”

Her face hardened.

Caelan handed the police a copy of the security footage showing Selene inside the banking suite.

“This woman is connected to identity theft, financial fraud, and payments made to suspects in an attempted hospital bombing,” he said.

Selene’s crying stopped.

Only for a second.

Then she became even more fragile.

“Lucien opened the account. He controlled the payments. I was frightened of him.”

Lucien laughed.

“You begged me to hide the records.”

“Because you threatened my child.”

“Enough,” I said.

I placed my phone on the table and played the recording from moments earlier.

Selene’s voice filled the hall:

Octavian promised my child would receive what my mother was denied.

Then came her confession that Octavian wanted me to marry Lucien so he could control Mercer assets after Father’s death.

The reporters moved closer to her.

Selene’s beautiful story collapsed under the weight of her own words.

“You recorded me,” she whispered.

“Yes.”

“You planned this.”

“I learned from you.”

The police took the laptop and birth certificate as evidence. The ambulance examined Selene and found no immediate medical emergency.

She was not arrested because her lawyer arrived with a court order protecting her from questioning on medical grounds.

Octavian had prepared her escape.

As she was escorted outside, she looked at me.

“You think you won.”

“No,” I said. “I think you finally lost control of the story.”

Her eyes filled with hatred.

“My child will inherit everything you stole from me.”

“You still haven’t named the father.”

She glanced at Lucien.

It was not the look of a woman seeking protection from her child’s father.

It was a warning.

After she left, Lucien attempted to follow.

I stopped him.

“You admitted covering up the account.”

“I erased evidence of our relationship, not the payments.”

“What evidence?”

“Hotel records. Messages. Clinic appointments.”

“How long were you together?”

He looked toward the reporters.

“This is not the place.”

“That answer protected Selene for years.”

“Elara—”

“How long?”

Caelan stood beside me without interfering.

Lucien’s silence confirmed that the affair had not begun after my wedding as I once believed.

One of Caelan’s investigators entered carrying a recovered document from the laptop.

The file contained deleted instructions for Selene’s secret account.

Most bore Octavian’s initials.

Several carried Lucien’s.

The earliest instruction was dated two years before my wedding.

It ordered Lucien to remove Selene’s name from the Mercer payroll system after she transferred confidential files to the Vale Group.

“He covered her tracks,” I said.

Lucien looked at the document and went pale.

“That file should not exist.”

“But it does.”

I opened the attached records.

They showed that Lucien had been protecting Selene long before she became pregnant.

Long before our engagement.

Long before I suspected either of them.

At the bottom of the file was a photograph of them kissing inside Lucien’s office.

The timestamp was four years old.