Chapter 3 - The Darkest Betrayal and The Missing Sister
I looked up, the cold sinking past my skin and straight into my bones. I stared at Vivian. The matriarch was no longer looking at Graham, who was still sobbing in the snow, or at Chloe, who was quietly trying to sneak back into the house. Vivian was staring at me, her face a mask of absolute, terrified recognition.
“You did this,” I breathed, the realization a physical weight crushing my lungs.
Vivian’s jaw tightened. “I did what was necessary for the Harrington legacy.”
“Mother?” Graham croaked from the snow. “What is she talking about?”
Before Vivian could speak, another car pulled through the gates—a battered sedan. A woman scrambled out, clutching a leather binder to her chest. It was Nora Vance, the private nurse from the exclusive Harrington fertility clinic. She was the nurse who had abruptly vanished three months into my pregnancy, the one Vivian had dismissed as “mentally unstable.”
“Ms. Vale!” Nora shouted, running toward my security line. “I have the real files! I couldn’t keep running. I brought everything!”
“Let her through,” I commanded.
Nora shoved the binder into my hands, tears streaming down her face. “I’m so sorry, Evelyn. I wanted to tell you. When you fainted in your second month… when Mrs. Harrington rushed you to our private clinic…”
My stomach plummeted. I remembered that day. A sudden wave of dizziness, a cup of tea Vivian had insisted I drink, and then darkness. I had woken up in the clinic, groggy, with Vivian holding my hand, claiming I had suffered a minor hemorrhage and they had performed a minor, non-invasive procedure to save the babies.
“It wasn’t a hemorrhage,” Nora choked out. “You were heavily sedated. Mrs. Harrington bribed the head surgeon. They terminated your natural pregnancy while you were unconscious.”
No. A visceral, agonizing scream clawed at the back of my throat, but I swallowed it down. My hands shook violently. My babies.
“They implanted new embryos,” Nora confessed, stepping back as if expecting me to strike her. “Embryos Mrs. Harrington had created years ago, using her late husband Conrad’s frozen sperm.”
Graham let out a sound that was half-gasp, half-sob. “You made my sons… my brothers? You used my wife as a breeding dog?”
Vivian slapped him, a resounding crack that echoed in the courtyard. “You were weak, Graham! You were squandering the name. Conrad’s blood was the only thing that could save this family. I needed a pure heir, and this little nobody had a young, healthy body. She was nothing but a vessel!”
I stepped forward. The sheer gravity of my fury made Vivian take a step back. I had meticulously planned to ruin them financially, but this—this was a violation of my soul, of my flesh. I looked toward the warm SUV where Dr. Cross was settling the twins. They were still mine. I had bled for them, carried them, loved them in the dark hours of the night. Biology didn’t change the fierce, maternal fire burning in my chest.
“You stole my body, Vivian,” I said, my voice dropping to a lethal whisper. “But Conrad is only half the equation. Where did the egg come from?”
Vivian’s eyes darted toward the shadows. She remained stubbornly, terrifiedly silent.
Nora pointed to a specific page in the binder. “Look at the donor registry, Evelyn. It wasn’t an anonymous egg. Dr. Selwyn tried to wipe the records, but I kept the hard copy.”
I looked down. My eyes scanned the typed name of the female genetic donor.
Donor: Vale, Celeste.
The binder nearly slipped from my grasp.
Celeste. My older half-sister.
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The sister my mother told me had died in a tragic car accident when I was only five years old. The sister whose face I had only seen in fading, hidden photographs.
“She’s dead,” I whispered, looking at Vivian. “Celeste died twenty years ago.”
