Chapter 15 - The Mother Who Sold Her Soul
Daniel thrust Sophie into Emma’s arms. "Take her to the panic room. Kane, seal the second floor."
"Daniel, wait!" Emma shouted, but Daniel had already snatched a heavy iron fireplace poker from the hearth and lunged through the terrace doors into the biting morning chill.
The wet lawn soaked through his shoes as he sprinted across the terrace, every muscle coiled for violence. The mist parted around him like cold smoke. The woman under the silver umbrella did not move an inch. As Daniel closed the distance, her face came into sharp focus.
It was Evelyn Cross.
She looked older than the photograph—fine lines radiated from the corners of her predatory eyes, and her mouth was set in an expression of cold, aristocratic amusement. She smelled of expensive French tuberose and damp earth.
"I wouldn't swing that iron if I were you, Daniel," she said, her voice smooth as melted glass. "Two snipers have laser sights trained on your chest right now from the treeline. If you take another step, Sophie will be an orphan before breakfast."
Daniel stopped ten paces away, his chest heaving, his eyes blazing with feral fury. "Get off my land."
"It isn't your land," Evelyn said serenely, adjusting her leather glove. "Jonathan bought this estate with a promissory note backed by Cross Capital. When he defaulted on his debt twelve months ago, the title reverted to my offshore entity. You are trespassing on my property, Daniel."
"You abandoned your own daughter," Daniel spat, the rage vibrating through his teeth. "You staged your own death, left Emma to grow up in foster homes and public housing, and now you come back to steal her child?"
Evelyn’s smile vanished, replaced by an abyss of pure, calculated vanity. "Emma was an inconvenient liability. A reminder of a weak marriage to a pathetic doctor who had no ambition. But Sophie... Sophie is Jonathan Sterling’s direct genetic descendant. Sophie holds the master key to the Sterling trust."
"You will never touch her."
"I won't have to," Evelyn said softly. "Emma will hand her to me willingly. Because if she doesn't, the medical clinic in Zurich will release the autopsy report on Jonathan Sterling. The one proving that your father didn't die of pulmonary fibrosis."
Daniel froze. "What are you talking about?"
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"Jonathan was poisoned with thallium over eighteen months," Evelyn whispered, stepping closer, her eyes gleaming with malice. "And the signature on the pharmacy logs that ordered the compound belongs to Emma."
***
