Chapter 4

Pierre raised his head, tears still on his face, uncertainty clouding his eyes.

I looked at Elizabeth, at the carefully maintained mask of gentleness on her face, and suddenly smiled.

It was the kind of smile all three brothers knew well. The one I wore right before a beating.

"Pierre." I released him and stepped back. "Stand up."

Pierre obeyed and got to his feet.

All six-foot-two of him stood before me with red-rimmed eyes, like a sapling battered by a storm but stubbornly upright again.

"Elizabeth has a point," I said, looking at Pierre. "So how do I prove it? Let me ask you this. When you were twenty and came home with your first acting award, you snuck into my room at two in the morning and placed the trophy on my pillow. What did you say?"

Pierre's pupils contracted sharply. His throat tightened. "I said... Sis, half of this belongs to you."

I stepped closer. "Then you talked me into trading you one of my old gowns. You called it your lucky charm, wore it for three days straight, and refused to take it off."

His ears turned red.

"And there's more." I grabbed Pierre by the collar and pulled him close. "There's a one-inch scar on your thigh. You fell from the floor above and needed seven stitches. You were terrified Dad would scold you. How did I cover for you?"

Pierre's tears surged again, and his voice shook uncontrollably. "You told him you'd taken me swimming at night and I'd banged my leg on something. You took a slap from Dad for me."

Elizabeth's expression shifted.

These were things no one knew. Not even her.

Elizabeth gritted her teeth. "Pierre! Think! She could be a spy from the Reese family. She could've tricked someone into telling her all this..."

"Bullshit!" Pierre roared. "Not even Seth knows about the scar on my thigh. Who could she have tricked into telling her?"

"That still doesn't prove she's Aria! We all saw her body! What, did she turn into a ghost?"

Elizabeth was hysterical, as if she'd been bitten by a snake.

Just then, the front door swung open. Nick walked in with his suit jacket draped over his arm, his face cold as ice.

"Looks like I'm right on time." Nick tossed an envelope onto the coffee table with a heavy thud. "Elizabeth, I think you're the one who needs to explain."

Elizabeth's chest heaved. "What's this about, Nick? Don't tell me you've been fooled by this imposter too."

"Shut up!" Nick walked to the coffee table and opened the envelope. "She is our sister!"

"Whether you believe it or not, she's back!" He pulled out a stack of transfer records and spread them in front of Elizabeth.

"In the past year, you've had Pierre sign contracts for seven endorsements, three films, and two reality shows." Nick's voice was cold as ice.

"You skimmed fifteen percent from every commission and wired it straight to your offshore account. Forty-seven million dollars in total." He looked up at Elizabeth with the cold indifference of someone who had seen through everything.

"You pushed Pierre to sign on for the reality show Bloodline because Lockwood's people were financing it."

Nick spoke each word with deliberate weight. "You sweet-talked Pierre into signing this contract not to repair his public image, but to give Lockwood's people legitimate access to the estate, let them spy on the Costa Family's secrets, and make it easier for you to siphon off the Family's assets."

Every last drop of color drained from Elizabeth's face.

"That can't be..." Pierre stared at her in disbelief.

"Pierre, remember three months ago when Elizabeth asked you to give her authority over every property in your name for an asset review? She was actually trying to transfer them into her own name!"

Pierre's body went rigid.

"That's not true." Elizabeth's voice shook. "I would never do that. Nick, why are you making these false accusations?!"

"If it's false, we'll know once we look into it." I walked over and stood in front of Elizabeth. "Check everything now. Every account linked to her name, every offshore account, her call logs, her contacts. Check every last detail!"

"Pierre." Elizabeth's voice softened again, a wounded tremor running through it. "Are you really going to trust them over me? Have you forgotten everything I've done for you these past three years?"

Pierre looked at her, then took a step back, putting distance between them.

"I remember," he said, his voice quiet but every word clear. "You stayed up with me through three all-nighters editing footage. You listened to me talk about every rejection. You cried the day I won the award and said they were tears of joy for Sis."

"But if all of that was only meant to exploit my weaknesses, then it wasn't kindness. It was manipulation."

"Think about it, Elizabeth. Every kindness you've shown us was too calculated!"

Elizabeth took a step back. She looked at Pierre, then at me, and finally at the transfer records in Nick's hands.

"I'm going to Seth. He'll see how his idiot brothers are ganging up on me over an imposter!"

She spun around and glared at me. "You'll never fool Seth. He's the Don of this family! Let's see how far that face gets you when he arrives!"

She practically bolted out the front door.