Chapter 3

My cheek swelled up instantly. The handprint burned like fire.

I narrowed my eyes at the cleaner, but I had absolutely no idea who she was.

Cradling my burning cheek, I glared at her coldly. "My name is not Veronica! If you don't apologize and compensate me immediately, my legal team will bury you!"

But the cleaner started wailing like she was putting on an Oscar-winning performance.

"God forgive me! Why did I give birth to such a curse!"

"She won't even recognize her own mother just to pull off a scam!"

"Miss Caroline, Mr. Matthew, I apologize. I failed to raise this shameless daughter properly."

"Punish her however you want. I won't stop you. Maybe it'll keep her from conning anyone else!"

The cleaner—Martha's—words sent a gasp through the room.

"This woman is a high-level con artist?"

"Even her own mother says so. It’s gotta be true!"

"Thank God she stepped in, or we all would have been fooled!"

Caroline ground her teeth and glared at me.

"You think playing me is funny?"

"Guards, throw the snake on her. I want her begging for death!"

Catching the sinister gleam of victory in Martha and Matthew's eyes, I yelled back.

"I'm not lying! This woman is acting! My name is not Veronica either."

"I'm Valerie. She can't even get my real name right, how could she be my mother?"

Caroline finally noticed that the name on the diploma was indeed Valerie.

Seeing her waver, Matthew quickly stepped up to cover his tracks.

"How could a mother not know her own kid? She IS Veronica!"

"She even forged a Yale degree to trick you."

"It's just a name! She’s probably scammed so many people she legally changed it to avoid getting clipped!"

I reacted instantly. "Run a background check. You're the Cassano princess; finding my real identity should be a breeze. My name is Valerie, I graduated from Yale, and I am not the con artist she claims I am!"

Skeptical, Caroline made a quick call to her tech guys. She got her answer quickly.

My name was indeed Valerie.

But facing Caroline's icy stare, Martha cried her eyes out, swearing she was my biological mother.

"Valerie, I divorced your gambling addict of a father when you were three to raise you all by myself."

"You can't just change your name and disown your own mother because that bastard promised you money!"

"He's lying to you! Mommy is the only one who truly loves you!"

Martha wept, producing a notarized DNA test to prove she was my biological mother.

Looking at her face, it finally clicked.

I remembered her. She was my birth mother, but she had the story twisted—she was the gambling addict.

Because of her massive debts, she even tried to sell me to her loan sharks when I was a kid.

My dad couldn't take her abuse anymore. He packed me up and fled in the middle of the night, cutting her out of our lives for good.

We didn't have a single picture of her in our house, which was why I couldn't recognize her.

But no one believed my explanation.

Even the Don, who had been silent, stood up with a cold look.

"Miss Valerie, I want to believe you."

"But your mother has been cleaning for my family for twenty years. Her word holds more weight than yours, doesn't it?"

"I will not allow a lying woman who tried to wreck my daughter's marriage to walk out of New York alive."

Raising his hand, the Don gave a ruthless order.

"Strip her naked and dump her in the red-light district. Let her work as the cheapest streetwalker on the block!"

As the guards grabbed me, my eyes locked onto Caroline, and everything clicked. I forcefully shook off the guards.

"Don! I know who Matthew is sleeping with!"