Chapter 5 – THE MISTRESS WITH THE WRONG LAST NAME”Get out.”

My voice was so quiet that Victoria almost didn’t hear me.

She lifted her tear-streaked face.

“Laurel—”

“Get out of this office.”

Eleanor rose.

“Mrs. Varelli, I think we should—”

“No,” I interrupted. “She needs to understand what she’s just admitted.”

Victoria flinched.

For fifteen years, she’d treated me like a decorative addition to the family.

Someone useful for charity events.

Someone who smiled for photographs.

Someone expected to produce an heir and quietly disappear into the background when she couldn’t.

But standing in Eleanor’s office, staring at the woman who had introduced my husband to someone who might be his half sister, I felt something inside me harden.

“You suspected Sabrina was Angelo’s daughter.”

Victoria nodded miserably.

“And you still brought her into my home.”

“I didn’t know they were involved.”

“At first?”

“No.”

“But when you found out?”

“I tried to separate them.”

I laughed.

It was an ugly sound.

“You told me three days ago that Sabrina would be joining us for Christmas because she had nowhere else to go.”

“She didn’t.”

“She was sleeping with my husband.”

Victoria pressed a hand over her mouth.

“And you knew.”

“Yes.”

I turned away.

There were betrayals a marriage might survive.

A careless lie.

A terrible argument.

Even an affair, perhaps, if both people were willing to face the damage and change.

But this wasn’t merely an affair.

This was a system.

A family business built on secrets.

A mother who valued inheritance over human beings.

A husband who believed violence was an acceptable way to end an argument.

And a young woman who had stepped into our lives with an agenda nobody fully understood.

Eleanor spoke carefully.

“Laurel, we need to verify the claims about Sabrina’s parentage. A collection of letters may not establish the truth.”

“I know.”

Victoria looked up.

“The box is at a private bank in Greenwich. Angelo left instructions that I could access it.”

“Then why haven’t you?”

“Because I was afraid.”

“Of what?”

“The truth.”

I stared at her.

“Victoria, you’ve had years to be afraid. You don’t get to make your fear my responsibility.”

She looked down.

Eleanor collected the key.

“We’ll determine whether the bank can release the contents through an authorized process,” she said. “Any relevant documents will be properly preserved.”

Victoria nodded.

Then she turned toward the door.

Before she reached it, I asked one last question.

“Does Sabrina know?”

She stopped.

“I don’t know.”

“Does Silas?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

Victoria faced me.

For the first time, her expression seemed sincere.

“If Silas knew, Laurel, he would never have touched her.”

I remembered Christmas dinner.

The way Silas had stood beside Sabrina.

His hand covering hers.

His fury when I slapped her.

I wanted to believe Victoria.

But I’d believed too many people already.

“That doesn’t change what he did to me,” I said.

Victoria lowered her eyes.

“No. It doesn’t.”

She left.

By the time the elevator doors closed, I was shaking.

Eleanor brought me water.

“Drink.”

I did.

Then I asked, “What do we do now?”

“We deal with facts. We investigate the parentage issue separately, with appropriate consent and evidence. And we continue protecting the trust.”

I nodded.

I didn’t want revenge built on an unverified allegation.

I wanted the truth.

All of it.

Even the parts that frightened me.

That evening, Naomi discovered something strange in White Rose Advisory Group’s financial records.

Sabrina’s company had received millions in consulting payments.

But shortly after Christmas dinner, a substantial portion of the funds had been transferred into a newly opened account.

An account that investigators could not yet fully trace.

Naomi showed me the transaction history.

“She moved nearly six million dollars over four days.”

“Can we stop her?”

“Not without legal grounds and proper orders. But we can preserve the evidence and ask questions.”

“Why would she move money before Christmas?”

Naomi looked thoughtful.

“Perhaps she knew someone was about to investigate.”

Or perhaps she knew the Varelli family was about to collapse.

I thought of the unknown message about the red ledger.

Then another possibility occurred to me.

“What if Sabrina sent those messages?”

Eleanor considered it.

“Possible.”

“Why would she help me?”

“People sometimes expose others to protect themselves.”

I remembered Sabrina’s face at Christmas.

The victorious little smile.

The way she’d touched her stomach.

The way she’d looked directly at me when mentioning the old nursery.

Everything about her behavior had seemed calculated.

But calculated toward what?

Winning Silas?

Getting access to the trust?

Or forcing a confrontation that would destroy the Varelli family?

I didn’t know.

At 8:20 p.m., my younger sister, Claire Bellamy, called.