Chapter 6 - Victoria’s Secret
Agent Sloan returned to Victoria with the recovered image.
The Sterling matriarch sat upright in a velvet chair.
Her lawyers surrounded her.
Sloan placed the printout on the table.
Victoria did not touch it.
“Do you recognize this list?”
“No.”
“Your name appears on it.”
“My name appears on thousands of documents.”
“This document was concealed inside Major Elena Hale’s medal.”
Victoria’s lead attorney raised a hand.
“My client will not answer further questions.”
Vance stood near the doorway.
“Twenty-four years ago, you told investigators that you had never met Elena Hale.”
Victoria looked at him.
“I had not.”
“Then why did she place your name beside her husband’s?”
“I cannot explain the decisions of a dead woman.”
Maya entered the library.
Noah was now sleeping in a portable crib watched by a federal protection officer.
Victoria’s gaze landed on the bruise forming across Maya’s cheek.
For one fleeting instant, regret appeared.
Then it vanished.
Maya stopped across from her.
“You knew who I was before I married Adrian.”
Victoria said nothing.
“You ordered a background investigation.”
Silence.
“You allowed me to spend years believing I had been abandoned.”
Her attorney stood.
“Mrs. Sterling is not required to respond.”
Maya looked at him.
“I was not speaking to you.”
The attorney sat down.
Victoria folded her hands.
“I did what was necessary to protect my family.”
“From a three-year-old child?”
“From the Vaughn name.”
Maya’s eyes narrowed.
“What did my mother discover?”
Victoria’s jaw tightened.
“She discovered that powerful men do not surrender their fortunes because a self-righteous soldier demands it.”
“Did Conrad kill her?”
“No.”
The answer came with surprising force.
Maya stepped closer.
“Did you?”
Victoria’s expression did not change.
“No.”
Vance studied her carefully.
“You are telling the truth about that.”
Victoria looked at him with cold amusement.
“You always did think you could read people.”
“I can read guilt.”
“Then you should know my guilt is not murder.”
Maya’s pulse quickened.
“What is it?”
Victoria glanced at her attorneys.
None of them spoke.
Finally, she looked back at Maya.
“I knew where you were.”
The room went still.
Maya’s face emptied of emotion.
“When?”
“Three months after you disappeared.”
“And you left me in the group home.”
Victoria’s voice remained measured.
“You were alive.”
“You were safe.”
“You had a different name.”
“The investigation had gone cold.”
“You could have brought me to my grandfather.”
Victoria laughed once.
“Your grandfather would have destroyed every Sterling holding and spent the rest of his life hunting Conrad.”
“He had the right to know I survived.”
“He was already dying.”
“That was not your decision.”
“No.”
Victoria’s eyes hardened.
“It was mine.”
Maya turned away before rage overcame her.
Victoria spoke again.
“You should be grateful.”
Maya slowly faced her.
May you like
“For what?”
“For allowing you to live.”
