Chapter 3: The Seven-Year Ghost
"You paid him," the boy continued, his voice steadying. "You told him to take me to the docks. You told him to make sure I never came back. You gave him that ring because you didn't have the cash on you that night."
Evelyn stepped forward, her voice a fragile whisper. "How... how do you know that?"
"Because he lost the ring in a poker game three years later," the boy said, standing up on his own. "He bragged about it to the man who raised me. He said the Sterling man was so desperate to inherit the estate that he’d pay any price to get rid of his own son."
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Arthur lunged for the boy, but Evelyn stepped in between them, her fury manifesting like a dormant volcano finally erupting. "Touch him, and I will burn this house down with you inside it."
The security team, usually loyal to Arthur, hesitated. They looked at the boy, then at the locket, then at Arthur’s trembling hand. The balance of power had shifted. The man who had played the role of the grieving father for seven years was now exposed as the architect of his own son’s abduction.
