Chapter 9
The flight attendant quickly led Maya and me into the private crew rest cabin near the cockpit.
She brought us hot chocolate, soft wool blankets, and two warm plates of roast chicken from first class.
Maya ate hungrily, her face covered in chocolate, completely unaware of the war waging around us.
I sat on the small leather bench, clutching my mother’s vintage brass locket tightly inside my hand.
The door to the crew rest room opened, and William Sterling stepped inside, holding his quiet baby son.
He sat down across from me, looking at my mother’s locket resting against my dirty sweater.
“May I see that?” William asked gently, pointing at the tarnished metal oval in my palm.
I hesitated for a second, then carefully handed the locket over to the powerful billionaire.
He clicked the small side clasp open, staring down at the tiny photograph tucked inside the frame.
His breathing hitched sharply, his steel-gray eyes widening in pure, unadulterated shock.
“Where did you get this photo, Lily?” William asked, his voice barely above a ragged whisper.
“That’s my mother, Clara,” I answered, pointing at the woman with the bright blue eyes in the picture.
William turned the locket toward the dim light, staring at the face of the woman he thought was dead.
May you like
“Clara wasn’t just your mother, Lily,” William revealed, his hands shaking as he held the metal.
“She was my wife’s twin sister.”
