Chapter 60: Lies on the Brink of Collapse

The rain poured down as I faced my mother.

Not the gentle kind that brings back memories, but a fierce storm that seemed to have been brewing for ages, much like my own turmoil. 

Olivia Sinclair was seated by the fireplace, casually sipping her wine as if everything was perfectly fine, exuding an air of grace and control. Yet, the moment I entered the room with that photograph in hand, I noticed her fingers quiver just a bit.

“You were never supposed to find that,” she said, her voice low, unflinching.

I didn’t sit down. I stood over her like I’d spent years preparing for this exact moment. “Then maybe you shouldn’t have buried it in a folder labeled ‘Tax Reports.’ You knew I’d dig.”

“I was hoping you’d stop before you got to the truth,” she muttered.

“Why?” I demanded. “Why keep it a secret? You and Victor Caldwell were in love. You almost ran away together. And instead, you married Dad and let an entire war fester between two families.”

She raised her gaze, her mask fracturing as sorrow seeped through the creases of her expression. "I had no other option."

“Don’t feed me that,” I snapped. “You always had choices. I lived my whole life watching you manipulate political rooms and dominate public conversations. Don’t tell me you were powerless.”

She placed her wine glass down with a clink and stood, pulling her robe tighter around her frame.

“I got pregnant,” she said quietly.

Silence.

“What?” My voice was a whisper.

“With Victor’s child. Before your father proposed,” she continued, her tone detached. “I was nineteen. We were reckless and young and so in love. But your grandfather—Senator Sinclair—he found out. He gave me two options: disappear with Victor and be disowned, or marry Richard, raise the child as a Sinclair, and bury the affair.”

My legs nearly gave out. “Are you saying…”

“No,” she cut in quickly. “The baby didn’t survive. I miscarried three weeks later.”

The impact of her words hit me hard, leaving me in stunned silence. She had experienced love. She had faced loss. And then she concealed it so profoundly that it turned into a toxic legacy for years to come.

“That’s why you hated him,” I whispered. “That’s why Dad made sure the feud never died. Because he couldn’t handle that you once loved someone else more.”

She didn’t reply. But her eyes said everything.

“I don’t know what’s worse,” I said, blinking away the burn in my throat. “That you let this hatred fester for decades… or that you let me walk blindly into this arrangement with Dominic, knowing exactly what our families were built on.”

Olivia stepped toward me, her voice trembling. “I did it to protect you.”

“From what? The truth?”

“No. From becoming me.”

I shook my head, chest rising and falling. “It’s too late.”

I left the Sinclair estate feeling like every layer of my identity had been peeled away.

Dominic was waiting in the car, engine running, eyes unreadable. I slid into the passenger seat and let the silence swallow us whole for a moment.

“She confirmed it,” I said. “Everything. The affair, the baby… the manipulation.”

His hands gripped the steering wheel tighter. “And now?”

“Now we need to decide what to do with it,” I whispered.

He looked at me, and there was something in his gaze I couldn’t place—relief, maybe. Or fear.

“There’s more,” he said. “Victor’s will. I had an attorney dig it up after we spoke to him. Turns out… he changed it six months ago. There’s a clause—if I’m married to you, the Sinclair name officially merges with the Caldwell legacy. All political power and business holdings become unified.”

I stared at him. “So this marriage wasn’t just symbolic. It’s strategic.”

He nodded. “The final act in a decades-long power struggle.”

I laughed bitterly. “Of course it is. Even our love story is a business transaction.”

“Is that what you think this is?” he asked sharply.

I turned to him, jaw set. “Isn’t it?”

His eyes darkened. “I kissed you because I wanted to. I held you when you were breaking because I couldn’t stop myself. If I wanted to control you, I would’ve used every dirty secret in my arsenal. But I didn’t. I let you find the truth on your own.”

I opened my mouth. Then closed it again.

Because he was right.

The man I thought was my enemy had shown me more honesty than the people who raised me.

I looked down at my hands, at the ring that symbolized more than just obligation now. “Then what do we do with the truth? With Olivia and Victor?”

Dominic pulled onto the road. “We bring them into the same room. Let them face what they buried. And then… we bring down the one person who benefited from their silence the most.”

I met his gaze. “My father.”

He nodded once. “It’s time we tear the final curtain down.”

Two hours later, we were back at Caldwell Manor.

Victor was in the library. Olivia entered five minutes later, shoulders squared, lips pressed into a flat line. She hadn’t seen him in decades—not like this.

When their eyes met, time stood still.

Neither of them spoke. They didn’t have to. It was all there—regret, heartbreak, unfinished love.

I cleared my throat. “We know everything. The affair. The miscarriage. The manipulation from both sides.”

Victor finally turned toward me. “And now?”

Dominic stepped forward. “Now we need you both to testify.”

Victor blinked. “Testify?”

“Yes. Against Richard Sinclair.”

Olivia’s face paled. “You can’t be serious.”

“We have evidence,” Dominic said. “Financial transfers, offshore accounts, blackmail notes traced to your father. He played both families like a master puppeteer—and it ends now.”

Victor looked at Olivia. “We have a chance to end the war we never meant to start.”

She hesitated. I saw the war in her eyes. Then, finally, she nodded.

“I’ll do it,” she said.

And with those words, everything changed.

Later that night, I stood with Dominic on the balcony, wind tangling my hair, my thoughts a whirlwind of chaos.

He came up behind me, arms wrapping around my waist, his voice brushing my ear. “You okay?”

“No,” I whispered. “But I think I’m finally starting to see the truth.”

He turned me gently, his hand against my cheek. “Then let’s finish this. Together.”

I didn’t hesitate.

I kissed him—this time not because I had to, but because I wanted to. Because in a world built on secrets and shadows, he was the one person who never stopped choosing me.