Chapter 3 - The Sister Nobody Mentioned
I thought Samuel had made a mistake.
He had not.
Claire Monroe.
Victoria Monroe Vale.
Same father.
Different mothers.
Their father, Charles Monroe, had hidden Victoria for most of her childhood.
An affair.
A private settlement.
A daughter who received money but never the family name.
Claire discovered Victoria when she was twenty-three.
They tried to become sisters.
It lasted four years.
Then everything collapsed.
“Why?” I asked.
Samuel opened an old file.
“Because of Charles.”
Before his death, Charles left the majority of Monroe Capital to Claire.
Not Victoria.
“Why?”
“Public legitimacy.”
“What does that mean?”
Samuel looked uncomfortable.
“It means he acknowledged Victoria privately but refused to place her in the family succession.”
I hated the sentence.
“So Claire inherited everything?”
“Almost.”
“And then?”
“Claire moved thirty-eight percent of Monroe Capital into Lily’s trust.”
My pulse changed.
“How much is that worth?”
Samuel checked the latest valuation.
“Approximately one hundred seventy million dollars.”
I stared.
My six-year-old daughter had a future interest worth more than I had ever imagined.
Then Samuel showed me the clause that changed everything.
If Lily died before twenty-one without descendants, the Monroe shares reverted to Charles Monroe’s surviving bloodline.
Victoria.
I sat back.
“No.”
Samuel said nothing.
“She pushed Lily because—”
“We don’t know motive yet.”
“She stood to inherit a hundred seventy million dollars.”
“Yes.”
I thought of Victoria beside the pool.
You were always a mistake.
Then something worse hit me.
Victoria and I had been together eighteen months.
She knew exactly who I was.
Exactly who Lily was.
Exactly what Lily owned.
May you like
Had she ever loved me?
Or had I simply been the easiest way into my daughter’s life?
