PART 2: THE GRANDDAUGHTER THEY THOUGHT WAS LOST FOREVER

Nobody answered.

Sebastian looked around the lobby.

“Who hit my granddaughter?”

Margaret’s face turned white.

“I didn’t know who she was.”

Sebastian’s eyes hardened.

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

The manager immediately stepped forward.

“Mrs. Margaret slapped Miss Valle.”

Sebastian nodded slowly.

“Thank you.”

Margaret’s voice trembled.

“Mr. Valle, I sincerely apologize. I thought she was—”

“A nobody?”

Margaret stopped speaking.

Sebastian turned to Charlotte.

“Come with me.”

Charlotte didn’t move.

“I don’t understand.”

Sebastian looked at her with tears in his eyes.

“You shouldn’t have to.”

He pulled the old envelope from her bag.

Charlotte recognized it immediately.

“My mother told me never to open that.”

Sebastian’s hands began shaking.

“She was right.”

Charlotte stared at him.

“You knew my mother?”

“I loved her.”

The words stunned Charlotte.

Sebastian explained that Charlotte’s mother had been his only daughter.

Twenty-five years earlier, she had disappeared after a family dispute.

Everyone believed she had died.

But Sebastian had never stopped searching.

Charlotte’s mother had hidden her idenтιтy because someone inside the Valle family had threatened her.

“Who?” Charlotte asked.

Sebastian looked toward Margaret.

Margaret suddenly stepped backward.

Charlotte noticed.

“You know something.”

Margaret shook her head.

“No.”

Sebastian opened the envelope.

Inside was an old pH๏τograph.

Charlotte’s mother was standing beside Sebastian.

But someone had been cut out of the picture.

Sebastian pointed to the empty space.

“Your mother’s brother.”

Charlotte frowned.

“I thought my mother was an only child.”

“She wasn’t.”

Sebastian’s voice dropped.

“And he is the reason she disappeared.”

Before Charlotte could ask another question, one of Sebastian’s ᴀssistants rushed into the lobby.

“Mr. Valle, we have a problem.”

Sebastian turned.

“What?”

“The security system was accessed ten minutes ago.”

“By whom?”

The ᴀssistant hesitated.

“Someone using a family access code.”

Sebastian’s expression changed.

“Which code?”

The ᴀssistant whispered the name.

Charlotte’s blood ran cold.

Because the person who had accessed the system—

was the same person who had sent her the golden invitation.

And according to the security footage, he was already inside the H๏τel.

Watching them.