Chapter 1: The Child Who Walked Into Her Own Funeral
The young technician carried the little girl down the grand staircase.
Every conversation in the ballroom stopped.
Crystal chandeliers reflected off polished marble floors as more than one hundred guests turned toward the staircase.
At the center of the room stood the Hawthorne family.
Charles Hawthorne, the billionaire patriarch.
His wife, Eleanor.
Their attorneys.
Executives.
Reporters.
All gathered to announce that, after eight years of searching, their missing daughter had finally been declared legally dead.
Charles looked up.
The glass slipped from his hand and shattered against the floor.
"No..."
The little girl tightened her grip around the faded photograph.
"Daddy?"
The single word echoed through the mansion.
Charles staggered backward as though someone had struck him.
His face drained of color.
"Lily..."
Eleanor rushed forward.
"My baby..."
But before she could reach the child, Lily stepped behind the technician.
"I don't know you."
The room became painfully quiet.
Charles's voice broke.
"Lily..."
"It's Daddy."
The little girl looked confused.
"The woman in red said you didn't want me anymore."
Every head slowly turned toward one person.
Victoria Ashford.
Charles's elegant younger sister.
She stood near the fireplace wearing a long crimson evening gown.
Until that moment...
She had been smiling.
Now she wasn't.
The technician finally spoke.
"I found her locked inside the east wing."
"Behind a hidden wooden door."
"I thought it was a storage room."
Silence.
Charles stared at his sister.
"Victoria..."
"What is he talking about?"
She laughed nervously.
"This is absurd."
"That child isn't Lily."
The little girl slowly unfolded the torn photograph she had been holding.
It showed Charles holding a laughing four-year-old girl in the mansion garden.
Half the picture had been ripped away.
May you like
The other half...
Still matched the child standing before him.
