INICIAR SESIÓNAMARA'S POVOne photograph was enough to turn my blood cold.Lillian sat in the back of a moving vehicle, her wrists tied and a bruise darkening her cheek. Beneath the image was a message demanding the original birth register in exchange for her freedom.But the final sentence frightened me most.Find out which of you was switched.I stared at the screen.Lillian and I had spent years searching for answers about our mother. Now someone was telling me that even our identities might have been exchanged.“I'm going to that clinic,” I said.Damien immediately shook his head.“Absolutely not.”“She could be my sister.”“And that's exactly why they chose her. They know you'll walk into their trap without thinking.”I turned toward him.“What would you have me do? Sit here while someone threatens her life?”“No. We'll get her back, but we won't give them another opportunity to hurt you.”Daniel approached, holding his injured shoulder.“The old clinic has two entrances. The main entrance fac
AMARA'S POVThe name on the birth register seemed to burn through my fingers.VICTOR ALEXANDER.I stared at Daniel, waiting for him to deny what Victor had just said. I wanted him to laugh, call it another cruel manipulation, and tell me that the man who raised me and the mother I loved were the only parents I would ever need to understand.Instead, Daniel lowered his eyes.“Tell me he's lying,” I whispered.He swallowed.“I cannot tell you that.”My knees weakened.“So Victor is my father?”“We don't know that for certain.”“But you said the DNA report was genuine.”“It showed a biological connection between us. I believed it proved I was your father, but Victor has just revealed something I should have questioned years ago.”I stepped away from him.“Then whose DNA did Olivia test?”Daniel looked toward Damien.“I don't know.”Damien took the report from the table.“Someone could have substituted the sample. We need to establish who collected it, where it was processed, and whether
AMARA'S POV“Amara… I don't think Eleanor was the only person who gave birth to you.”Daniel's words struck harder than the gunshots at the cemetery.I stared at him, waiting for an explanation that would make sense.“What did you just say?”He looked down at Evelyn's letter.“I need to be certain before I tell you anything.”“No.” My voice trembled. “You don't get to do that anymore. First, you tell me you're my father. Then you tell me my mother died six years ago. Now you're suggesting I might not even be her daughter?”“Amara, listen—”“Was Eleanor my mother or not?”Daniel's expression broke.“She raised you. She loved you. Nothing can change that.”“That isn't what I asked!”Damien stepped between us.“Daniel, if you know something, tell her.”Daniel shook his head.“I don't have the complete truth. I only know that Evelyn once told me Victor had arranged an adoption that was never recorded officially.”My stomach tightened.“An adoption?”He nodded.“She said a newborn girl had
DAMIEN'S POVI stared at the photograph on Marcus's phone.The man standing beside Victor Alexander had my face.Not someone who resembled me. Not a distant relative with similar features.He had my eyes, my jawline, and the small scar above his left eyebrow—the same scar I had carried since childhood.But I had never met him.According to Daniel, he was my twin brother.“That is impossible,” I said.Daniel didn't respond.I stepped closer, studying the frozen image. The timestamp showed the footage had been recorded six years earlier, on the night my mother supposedly died.“Who is he?”Daniel looked at me with an expression I couldn't interpret.“His name was Adrian Alexander.”The name meant nothing to me.“Was?”“He was your brother.”I laughed bitterly.“My father never mentioned another son. My mother never mentioned another son. There are no records of another Alexander heir.”“Exactly,” Daniel replied. “Victor made certain of that.”My chest tightened.I had grown up believing
AMARA'S POV“Six years ago, I watched your mother die.”Daniel's words seemed to drain every ounce of warmth from the vehicle.I stared at him, waiting for him to take them back.He didn't.My phone remained pressed against my ear long after the call had ended. I could still hear my mother's voice in my head, calling me sweetheart, just as she had when I was a little girl.But Daniel was telling me she was dead.“How can you say that?” I whispered.His eyes filled with pain.“Because I was there.”“You're lying.”“Amara—”“No!” My voice cracked. “I just spoke to her. I heard her voice. She called me her child!”Daniel lowered his head.“Someone is using her voice to reach you.”I shook my head violently.“You expect me to believe that?”“I expect you to understand that whoever called you knows things only Eleanor could have known.”Damien leaned forward from the opposite seat.“Daniel, explain yourself. Now.”Daniel rubbed his forehead with his uninjured hand.“Six years ago, Eleanor
AMARA'S POVThe gunshot shattered the silence.“DOWN!” Damien shouted.Before I could react, his arm wrapped around my waist, dragging me behind a marble tombstone. My knees struck the cold ground, and the sound of another gunshot sent pieces of stone flying above our heads.For one terrifying second, I couldn't breathe.Someone was shooting at us.“Damien!” I screamed.“Stay down!”He crouched beside me, shielding my body with his. His eyes searched the cemetery entrance, where a black SUV had stopped with its headlights pointed directly at us.Daniel was nowhere in sight.My heart slammed against my ribs.“Where is he?”Damien glanced toward the spot where my biological father had been standing moments earlier.“Daniel!”A groan came from behind a nearby mausoleum.I turned.Daniel was on the ground, one hand pressed against his shoulder. Blood seeped between his fingers.“Oh, my God!”I tried to move toward him, but Damien caught my wrist.“Amara, don't!”“He's bleeding!”“And the







