Chapter Forty: The Van Alston Gambit 2

Victoria's smile was sharp as a blade. "Oh, my dear girl. There's everything special about you. And the people who raised you? They were paid very well to keep you hidden from me for twenty-six years."

The words hit me like a slap. I thought about the way my parents had always treated me differently from my siblings, the way I'd never quite fit in, the way they'd always seemed to have just enough money to get by despite their modest jobs. The way they'd discouraged me from asking questions about my birth, about why I looked so different from the rest of the family.

Had they known? Had they been lying to me my entire life?

"There's more," Victoria continued, and something in her tone made my blood run cold. "The woman who arranged your adoption, who made sure you stayed hidden from me all these years—she had a daughter of her own. A daughter who grew up believing she was entitled to everything that should have been yours."

"What are you talking about?"

Victoria opened the folder and pulled out a photograph. It was old, faded, but I could still make out the faces clearly enough.

Delilah.

Standing next to a woman I didn't recognize, both of them smiling at the camera with the kind of easy confidence that came from never having to worry about money or status or where your next meal was coming from.

"Delilah Reynolds," Victoria said, her voice dripping with disdain. "Born Delilah Morrison. Daughter of the woman who kidnapped you and murdered your mother. She's been raised her entire life believing that she was the rightful heiress to the Van Alston fortune."

The room tilted on its axis. Delilah. The woman who'd tormented me, who'd pushed me through a window, who'd tried to destroy my marriage and my life—she was connected to all of this?

"But that's impossible," I whispered. "She's married to Blake. She was his mistress. She—"

"She's been playing a very long game," Victoria interrupted. "Using Blake to get close to you, to keep you distracted and vulnerable while she maneuvered herself into position to claim what she believed was rightfully hers. Did you really think it was a coincidence that she targeted your husband? That she went after you with such personal venom?"

The pieces were falling into place with sickening clarity. Delilah's obsession with Blake, her desperate need to destroy me, the way she'd seemed to take such personal pleasure in my humiliation—it hadn't been about love or jealousy at all.

It had been about money. About power. About a fortune that should have been mine.

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

Victoria smiled, and it was like watching a shark scent blood in the water. "I want to give you what's rightfully yours. The Van Alston companies are worth approximately 2.7 billion dollars. The real estate holdings add another billion. The art collection, the charitable foundation, the political connections—all of it can be yours within the week."

2.7 billion dollars. The number was so large it didn't even seem real.

"But there's a catch," I said, because there always was.

"A small one," Victoria agreed. "You'll need to publicly claim the Van Alston name. Renounce any connection to the family that raised you. Make it clear to the world that you are my granddaughter and the rightful heir to everything I've built."

The family that raised me. The people who'd loved me, who'd given me a home and a name and a sense of belonging, even if it had all been built on lies.

"And if I refuse?"

Victoria's smile didn't waver. "Then you'll continue to be Scarlett Kane, former wife of a cheating bastard, current wife of a man whose empire is built on violence and intimidation. You'll raise your child in the shadow of scandal and secrets, always looking over your shoulder, always wondering when the next attack will come."

She leaned back in her chair, her expression serene. "The choice is yours, my dear. But I should mention that time is rather of the essence. You see, Delilah has been making moves of her own. She's been quietly gathering support, building alliances, preparing to make her own claim on the Van Alston fortune."

"She can't do that," I said. "If what you're saying is true, if she's not actually—"

"Blood doesn't always matter in the world of inherited wealth," Victoria interrupted. "What matters is who has the better lawyers, the stronger political connections, the more convincing story. And Delilah has been preparing her story for a very long time."

That's when I heard the commotion in the hallway. Raised voices, the sound of security guards trying to maintain order, the unmistakable sound of someone pushing their way through a crowd.

The door to my room burst open, and Blake stumbled in, his face flushed and desperate. But he wasn't alone.

Delilah stood beside him, and she looked... wrong. Her usually perfect hair was disheveled, her expensive clothes wrinkled and stained. Her eyes had the glassy, unfocused look of someone who'd been heavily medicated, but underneath the pharmaceutical haze, I could see something that made my blood run cold.

Pure, undiluted rage.

"You," she said, her voice slurred but venomous as her eyes fixed on Victoria. "You're here. You're finally here."

Victoria stood slowly, her movements controlled and deliberate. "Delilah. You look... unwell."

"Unwell?" Delilah laughed, and the sound was like breaking glass. "I've been in a psychiatric ward for three days because of her." She gestured wildly at me. "Three days of doctors and nurses and medications, all because I had the audacity to tell the truth about what she really is."

"And what is she?" Victoria asked, her voice dangerously quiet.

"A fraud," Delilah snarled. "A nobody who married up and thinks she can steal what belongs to me. But I know the truth. I know about the Van Alston fortune. I know about the inheritance. I know about everything."

The monitors beside my bed were beeping frantically now, my heart rate spiking as the stress of the confrontation triggered another wave of cramping. I pressed my hands against my stomach, trying to protect the baby that was already fighting for its life.

"You need to leave," I said, my voice strained. "Both of you. I'm supposed to be on bed rest. The stress—"

"The stress?" Delilah's voice rose to a shriek. "You want to talk about stress? I've spent my entire life being groomed to inherit billions of dollars, only to find out that some random bitch who can't even keep her husband happy is going to take it all away from me!"

She took a step closer to my bed, and I could see the wild desperation in her eyes. "Do you know what it's like to be raised believing you're special? To be told that you're destined for greatness, that you're going to inherit an empire, only to find out that it's all a lie?"

"Delilah," Blake said, his voice uncertain. "Maybe we should—"

"Shut up!" she screamed, whirling on him. "This is your fault! If you hadn't been so weak, if you'd been able to keep her in line, none of this would have happened!"

She reached into her purse, and my blood turned to ice as I saw what she pulled out.

A gun.

Small, silver, but unmistakably deadly.

"If I can't have the fortune," she said, her voice eerily calm now, "then nobody can."

But she wasn't pointing the gun at Victoria, or at Blake, or even at me.

She was pointing it at my stomach.

At my baby.

The room exploded into chaos. Victoria shouted for security. Blake lunged forward, trying to grab the gun. The monitors beside my bed were screaming as my heart rate spiked beyond safe levels.

But all I could focus on was the barrel of that gun, pointed at the life growing inside me.

The life that had already survived one attempt on its existence.

The life that I would die to protect.

"Delilah," I said, my voice steady despite the terror coursing through my veins. "You don't want to do this."

Her laugh was the sound of madness given voice. "Don't I? You've taken everything from me. My money, my future, my identity. Why shouldn't I take something from you?"

"Because that baby is innocent," I said, never taking my eyes off the gun. "Whatever you think I've done to you, whatever you believe I've stolen—that child had nothing to do with it."

"But it's your child," Delilah said, and her smile was the most terrifying thing I'd ever seen. "Your precious little heir. And if it dies, then you'll know exactly how it feels to lose everything you've ever wanted."

The gun steadied in her grip, and I saw her finger tighten on the trigger.

Time slowed to a crawl.

In that moment, I made a choice that would change everything.

I wasn't going to be a victim anymore.

I wasn't going to lie there helplessly while someone tried to destroy my family.

I was going to fight.

Even if it killed me.