All Chapters of His Heart Stopped.. Mine Was Sold: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

The next morning, Grace and Millicent sat in the garden, ten feet apart, with twenty-six years of silence and hurt between them. I watched from the kitchen window while Mabel stood beside me, both of us pretending to wash dishes. Grace spoke first. Her voice carried through the open window, calm but strained. "You helped the woman who tried to kill my daughter's husband." Millicent's head dropped. "I did." "You gave them information about our family. About Samuel. About the box." "I did that too." "Why?" Millicent looked up. Her eyes were swollen from crying. "Because I was angry, Grace. You lived in my house for years and never told me about Richard. You never told me about the Emmanuels. You carried that secret like it was nothing, and when the truth came out, it made me feel like I never really knew my own sister." Grace stiffened. "So you sold us to a stranger?" "I did not sell you. I was scared and angry and she offered me money, and I..." Millicent's voice broke. "I mad

I drove to my grandmother's estate alone. No Jackson. No guards. Just me and the morning rain beating against the windshield.Evelyn opened the door herself. No staff. No pretense. She wore a simple grey dress, her silver hair loose around her shoulders. She looked ten years older than the last time I saw her."Victor." Her voice was small. "Come in."I followed her to the sitting room. Tea was set out, but neither of us reached for it. I sat across from her and waited."You said there was something about my father," I began. "Something that changes everything."Evelyn's hands twisted in her lap. She would not look at me. "Before I tell you, I need you to understand why I did what I did. All of it. The forged certificate. Driving Grace away. Choosing Shaznay. The fertility procedure.""I am not here for excuses, Grandmother.""Not excuses. Context." She finally raised her eyes to mine. They were bloodshot, rimmed with red. "Your father did not die of a heart attack, Victor."The air i

The garden at dusk was quiet. No phones. No guards within earshot. Just Victor and me on the stone bench beneath the old oak tree, watching the sky turn purple.He had changed into soft clothes. No suit. No tie. A grey sweater and dark trousers that made him look less like a billionaire and more like a man. His legs stretched in front of him, crossed at the ankles. His arm rested along the back of the bench behind my shoulders."Tell me something I do not know about you," I said.He turned his head and looked at me. "You know more about me than anyone alive.""That cannot be true.""It is." He shifted slightly, his arm settling closer around me. "Seven months of listening to you talk. You told me everything about yourself. But you also asked me questions, even though I could not answer. Nobody else did that.""What kind of questions?""You asked me once what my favorite color was. Then you guessed green because of the curtains in the master bedroom." His mouth twitched. "You were wron

Victor did not speak for the entire drive home. His jaw was locked, his eyes fixed on his phone screen where the message about the codicil glowed. I did not push him. Whatever was building inside his mind needed space to form before he could share it.At the mansion, he went straight to the study and called Moses. I followed, closing the door behind us."A codicil," Victor said into the phone. "An addition to my grandfather's will. If it exists, it would have been drafted around the same time as the original document. Possibly later." He listened. "I need you to check every filing with the probate court from that era. Every amendment, every supplementary document." Another pause. "Yes. Today."He ended the call and sat behind his desk. His fingers pressed against his temples."Talk to me," I said from the doorway."My grandfather's will divided the company between Evelyn and Valda. We knew that. But a codicil..." Victor dropped his hands. "A codicil could modify those terms. It could

The waiting was brutal. Victor buried himself in work, spending fourteen-hour days between the study and Emmanuel Holdings headquarters, rebuilding what was stolen during his absence. I saw him at breakfast and dinner, and in the hours between, the house was quiet except for my mother's footsteps and Mabel's gentle humming.On the second morning, I found myself in Victor's study alone. He had left for the office at dawn, and the room held the faint trace of his cologne. His desk was organized in neat stacks. Financial reports on the left. Legal documents in the center. And on the right, a folder I did not recognize.I opened it.My architecture designs. My thesis project. The community center plans I had submitted digitally to my university months ago, before any of this began.Victor had printed them. All forty pages. Blueprints, floor plans, elevation drawings, material specifications. Each page bore small pencil marks in the margins. Notes in Victor's handwriting."Brilliant use of