Chapter Forty-One: Blood and Bullets

The gun in Delilah's hand trembled, but her finger remained steady on the trigger.

"Nobody move," she said, her voice eerily calm despite the madness burning in her eyes. "Close the door, Blake. Lock it."

Blake hesitated, his face pale with terror. "Delilah, please. This isn't—"

"DO IT!" she screamed, and the sound echoed off the sterile walls like a gunshot. "Lock the fucking door or I'll put a bullet in her stomach right now!"

Blake's hands shook as he turned the lock, the click seeming to seal our fate. The room suddenly felt smaller, more suffocating, like a tomb where we were all waiting to die.

"Good," Delilah said, her voice dropping back to that unnaturally calm tone. "Now everyone sit down. Hands where I can see them."

Victoria remained standing, her spine straight and defiant despite the weapon pointed in our direction. "You're making a mistake, Delilah. One you won't be able to come back from."

"Am I?" Delilah laughed, and the sound was like breaking glass. "Because from where I'm standing, I'm finally protecting what's mine. What's been mine since birth."

She moved closer to my bed, the gun never wavering from its target—my baby. "Did you know I've been planning this for weeks? Ever since this bitch started sniffing around what belongs to me. The poison was supposed to take care of the problem quietly, efficiently. But you had to be strong, didn't you? You had to fight."

My hands instinctively moved to protect my stomach, but Delilah's sharp laugh stopped me.

"Don't even think about it," she said. "Keep your hands visible. I want to see every move you make."

The monitors beside my bed were beeping frantically, my heart rate spiking as the stress triggered another wave of cramping. I could feel the baby moving restlessly inside me, as if sensing the danger.

"You don't have to do this," I said, my voice steady despite the terror coursing through my veins. "Whatever you think I'm trying to take from you, we can work it out. We can find a solution."

"A solution?" Delilah's eyes widened with mock surprise. "Oh, that's rich. The woman who's trying to steal my entire life wants to find a solution."

She turned to Victoria, her expression twisted with rage. "Tell her, grandmother. Tell her that I'm the one who's been living as your granddaughter for twenty-six years. Tell her that I'm the one who went to the best schools, who attended the charity galas, who learned how to run the companies. Tell her that I'm the one who's earned this life."

Victoria's face remained impassive, but I could see the slight tightening around her eyes. "You know that's not how bloodlines work, Delilah."

"I know that I'm the one who's been preparing for this role my entire life!" Delilah shrieked. "I'm the one who's been groomed to inherit the Van Alston fortune. I'm the one who's been living as the heiress, who's been making the connections, who's been building the empire."

The pieces were falling into place with sickening clarity. Delilah had been raised in luxury, believing she was the Van Alston heiress, while I'd been struggling in poverty with a family that barely tolerated my existence.

"And when you found out the truth?" Victoria's voice was cold as winter. "When you discovered that you'd been living a lie for twenty-six years? What did you do then?"

"I did what any rational person would do," Delilah said, her voice cracking with desperate fury. "I protected what was mine. I worked to eliminate the threat."

She wiped her eyes with her free hand, smearing her already-ruined makeup. "Do you have any idea what it's like to discover that everything you've ever known is a lie? That the life you've been living, the fortune you've been inheriting, the identity you've been building—none of it actually belongs to you?"

Her gaze fixed on me with laser intensity. "And then she appeared. Perfect little Scarlett Kane, with her tragic marriage and her mysterious benefactor. And suddenly everyone was talking about how she looked like the Van Alston women, how she had the same eyes, the same bone structure."

"So you went after Blake," I said, understanding flooding through me. "You seduced him, destroyed my marriage, tried to break me completely. Because you thought if you could eliminate me, you could keep living the life that was never yours."

"It IS mine!" Delilah snarled. "I've been living it for twenty-six years! I've been the Van Alston heiress since birth! I've earned every penny, every connection, every privilege!"

"Through deception," Victoria said, her voice dripping with disdain. "Through living a lie that was never meant to be permanent."

"Through survival," Delilah corrected. "Through being better at being a Van Alston than she ever could be."

She gestured wildly at me. "Look at her! Look at the life she's lived! Do you really think someone who grew up in poverty, who was mistreated by her own family, who married a cheating bastard for security—do you really think she's worthy of billions of dollars?"

"I think she's worthy of what's rightfully hers," Victoria said firmly.

"Rightfully hers?" Delilah's laugh was hysterical. "I've been going to charity galas since I was five years old! I've been learning business strategy since I was twelve! I've been networking with world leaders since I was sixteen! What has she done? What has she accomplished?"

That's when I heard it—the faint sound of sirens in the distance, growing closer. Someone had called for help, though I couldn't imagine who. The hospital staff were all locked out, Blake was too terrified to think straight, and Victoria seemed more focused on psychological warfare than calling for backup.

Unless...

Dominic. He'd been paranoid about security ever since the gala, installing cameras and monitoring systems in places I didn't even know about. If he'd been watching, if he'd seen what was happening...

"Do you hear that?" Delilah asked, her head tilting as the sirens grew louder. "Your husband called the cavalry. How noble of him."

She pressed the gun harder against my stomach, and I felt the baby kick in response, as if trying to get away from the cold metal.

"But they can't come in here," she continued. "Not without risking your precious little miracle. So we have all the time in the world for you to understand why you need to walk away."

"What do you want?" I asked, though I was afraid of the answer.

"I want you to renounce your claim," Delilah said simply. "I want you to tell Victoria that you don't want the inheritance, that you're perfectly happy being Mrs. Dominic Blackwood. I want you to disappear back into obscurity where you belong."