🖤 PART 2: THE MAFIA BOSS WASN’T PARALYZED—HE WAS WAITING FOR HIS OWN BROTHER TO MAKE A FATAL MISTAKE. BUT WHEN MARTHA DISCOVERED WHAT WAS HIDDEN INSIDE HIS WHEELCHAIR, SHE REALIZED THE TRUTH WAS FAR MORE TERRIFYING THAN MURDER.

The man standing in the doorway was the last person I expected to see.

Adrian Rourke.

Maxwell’s younger brother.

He was thirty-two, handsome in a polished, almost effortless way, with dark hair, expensive suits, and a smile that made people feel as though they had known him their entire lives.

I had seen him several times during my first week at Rourke House.

He always greeted the staff by name. He tipped generously. He brought flowers to the elderly housekeeper when she complained about her arthritis.

And he had been the person who personally interviewed me for the job.

Now he stood in the bathroom doorway, staring at me with an expression so gentle it made my skin crawl.

“Martha,” he said pleasantly. “I hope my brother hasn’t been giving you trouble.”

I forced myself to lower my eyes.

“No, sir.”

“Good.” Adrian stepped inside and glanced at the bathtub. “Maxwell has always been difficult. Even before the accident.”

Maxwell’s face remained emotionless.

“Get out, Adrian.”

His brother chuckled.

“There he is. Fourteen months in a wheelchair, and you still think you can order everyone around.”

He approached the tub and placed a hand on Maxwell’s shoulder.

The gesture looked affectionate.

But I saw Maxwell’s fingers тιԍнтen against the marble.

Adrian noticed it, too.

His smile widened.

“Relax, brother. I’m only here because Dr. Bennett called me.”

My stomach тιԍнтened.

“Dr. Bennett?” Maxwell asked.

“Your physician.” Adrian tilted his head. “He says your latest neurological examination was unusual.”

The room seemed to shrink around us.

“What did he say exactly?” Maxwell asked.

“He said your condition might not be as stable as everyone believed.”

Adrian paused.

Then he looked directly at me.

“And apparently, someone has been helping you bathe this morning.”

I could barely breathe.

Maxwell’s voice turned icy.

“She brought towels.”

“Of course.” Adrian nodded. “That’s what she told the security team.”

The security team?

I hadn’t spoken to anyone.

Adrian stepped closer to me.

“Tell me something, Martha. Did you notice anything unusual?”

Maxwell’s eyes met mine.

I remembered his warning.

You saw nothing.

“No, sir,” I answered.

Adrian studied my face for several seconds.

Then, unexpectedly, he laughed.

“Excellent. I knew you were the right person for this job.”

He slipped a white envelope into my apron pocket.

“For your discretion.”

I didn’t touch it.

“Thank you, sir.”

He leaned toward me and whispered, “Keep doing your job, and you’ll have nothing to worry about.”

Then he straightened and walked toward the door.

Just before leaving, he turned back.

“Oh, Maxwell? Father wants to see you tonight.”

Maxwell’s expression changed so subtly that I might have missed it if I hadn’t been watching him.

“My father is ᴅᴇᴀᴅ,” he said.

Adrian’s smile disappeared.

For one brief, chilling second, neither brother moved.

Then Adrian smiled again.

“Of course. I meant Father’s lawyer. The meeting about the inheritance.”

He left.

The door closed.

And Maxwell Rourke, the man who had terrified an entire city for years, let out a breath that sounded almost like a sob.

I stared at him.

“What did he mean by that?”

Maxwell looked at the closed door.

Then he said, “Your first mistake was believing Adrian was my brother.”

I frowned.

“He is your brother.”

“By blood.”

His eyes returned to mine.

“Not by loyalty.”

He reached toward the bathrobe hanging beside the tub.

“Help me get dressed.”

I hesitated.

“You said someone paid to make you paralyzed. Was it Adrian?”

“Not so loud.”

“Then who was it?”

Maxwell’s jaw тιԍнтened.

“Someone who knew exactly which nerves to damage, which doctors to bribe, and which people I would trust enough to let near my body.”

He paused.

“Someone who wanted me alive, helpless, and watching while they took everything I built.”

I felt sick.

“Why pretend you couldn’t move?”

“Because the first time I showed signs of recovery, someone tried to kill me.”

He looked at the bathroom door.

“And the second time, they killed the man who helped me.”

A cold shiver traveled down my spine.

“Who was he?”

“My physical therapist. Samuel Price.”

I remembered reading about Samuel in the local news. He had died six months earlier in what police called a robbery gone wrong.

Maxwell continued.

“He discovered that my paralysis was being deliberately prolonged. He believed he could prove it. Three days later, he was found in his apartment with a bullet in his head.”

My mouth went dry.

“And you think Adrian did it?”

“I think Adrian knows who did it.”

Maxwell reached for his wheelchair.

“Now help me.”

I moved toward him, still struggling to process everything I had heard.

As I helped him transfer from the tub to the padded seat, I noticed a small metal panel beneath the wheelchair’s armrest.

It was secured with a tiny key lock.

“What is that?”

Maxwell followed my gaze.

For the first time since I had met him, he looked genuinely uncertain.

“Nothing you need to worry about.”

“Mr. Rourke, I’ve spent six years caring for patients. Wheelchairs don’t usually have locked compartments.”

“Mine does.”

“What’s inside?”

He looked at me for a long moment.

Then he reached beneath his bathrobe and produced a small silver key.

“Something that could save my life.”

He handed it to me.

“Or end yours.”

I should have refused.

Instead, I unlocked the panel.

Inside lay a black smartphone, a folded document, and a tiny glᴀss vial containing a colorless liquid.

I picked up the document first.

It was a medical report.

Maxwell Rourke’s name appeared at the top, followed by a series of neurological test results.

But the final paragraph made my blood run cold.

PATIENT RETAINS VOLUNTARY MOTOR CONTROL IN BOTH LOWER EXTREMITIES. RECOVERY IS PROGRESSING. PROGNOSIS: FAVORABLE.

The report was dated thirteen months earlier.

I looked at Maxwell.

“You knew you could move your legs all this time?”

“Not all the time.”

His voice was heavy.

“I discovered the truth six weeks after the accident. The doctors told my family I had suffered irreversible damage. But one night, while everyone was asleep, I moved my toes.”

“Then why didn’t you tell anyone?”

“Because the next morning, my medication had been doubled. I lost consciousness for nearly thirty hours.”

He nodded toward the vial.

“This is what they were giving me.”

I stared at the liquid.

“What is it?”

“A sedative mixed with something that interferes with neurological recovery. My private laboratory identified the compounds, but we couldn’t trace the source.”

“Who was administering it?”

“My nurse. My physician. My brother.”

The words landed like stones.

“Adrian?”

“Every morning, Adrian brought me my medication himself. He said it was a family tradition to look after one another.”

Maxwell’s expression hardened.

“He also made certain I could never refuse.”

I set the vial down with trembling fingers.

“Then why keep taking it?”

“Because I needed him to believe it was working.”

I stared at him in disbelief.

“You deliberately made yourself look worse?”

“I stopped taking the medication whenever I could do so safely. But I couldn’t risk a sudden recovery. Whoever caused the accident would know immediately that I had discovered the truth.”

He leaned closer.

“So I remained the helpless man everyone expected me to be. I listened. I watched. I waited.”

“For what?”

His answer chilled me.

“For the person who ordered my death to come close enough that I could prove it.”

Before I could respond, the black smartphone vibrated inside the compartment.

A single message appeared on the screen.

SHE SAW THE MOVEMENT. REMOVE HER BEFORE MIDNIGHT.

My hands went numb.

I turned the screen toward Maxwell.

He read it without blinking.

Then another message appeared.

ADRIAN HAS GIVEN THE ORDER.

I backed away from the wheelchair.

“They know my name.”

“They knew it before you entered this house.”

“What?”

Maxwell reached for the phone.

“Adrian didn’t hire you because you were qualified, Martha.”

He looked directly at me.

“He hired you because of your father.”

My heart stopped.

“My father died when I was twelve.”

“That’s what you were told.”

I shook my head.

“No. My mother showed me the death certificate. I remember the funeral.”

“Your father was Daniel Kovak, wasn’t he?”

The room seemed to tilt.

I hadn’t heard my father’s full name spoken aloud in years.

“Yes.”

Maxwell closed his eyes briefly.

“Then I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?”

He looked at me with an expression I couldn’t understand.

“Your father was the last accountant who worked for my family before the accident. He disappeared three days before my car went off the bridge.”

I couldn’t breathe.

“My father was a bookkeeper.”

“He was more than that. He discovered that millions of dollars were being moved through shell companies. He found payments to the surgeon who treated me, the doctor who declared me permanently paralyzed, and the men who tampered with my car.”

I gripped the edge of the sink.

“Are you saying my father was murdered?”

“I don’t know.”

His voice softened.

“But Adrian believes your father took something before he disappeared. Something that could expose everyone involved.”

I remembered my childhood home. My mother’s sudden insistence that we move to another state. The boxes she refused to let me open. The way she would go silent whenever I asked what had happened to my father.

And one strange memory surfaced.

When I was ten, my father had knelt beside my bed and pressed a small brᴀss key into my palm.

If anyone ever tells you I was a bad man, he had whispered, remember that the truth can hide inside ordinary things.

The key had disappeared after his death.

Or so I had believed.

“Mr. Rourke,” I whispered, “what did my father take?”

Maxwell reached for the folded document.

Before he could answer, the house alarm began to scream.

Red lights flashed in the hallway.

A man’s voice crackled over the security speaker.

“Lockdown. All personnel report to the east wing. Intruder detected.”

Maxwell’s face went rigid.

“That isn’t an intruder alarm.”

“What is it?”

He seized the wheelchair’s controls.

“It’s the signal they use when they want everyone inside the house to stay exactly where they are.”

A heavy thud sounded downstairs.

Then a gunsH๏τ.

I screamed.

Maxwell grabbed my wrist.

“Get behind me.”

“You can’t even stand!”

His eyes flashed.

“Not yet.”

He pressed a hidden switch beneath the armrest.

A section of the wheelchair’s backrest popped open, revealing a compact black pistol.

I stared at him.

“You keep a gun in your wheelchair?”

“I keep several things in my wheelchair.”

He pulled a second item from the compartment: a small remote with three ʙuттons.

“Listen carefully. There is a service pᴀssage behind the wardrobe. It leads to the old wine cellar. Once we’re inside, there’s a door that opens onto the garden.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll get there.”

“You can’t walk!”

He looked at me.

“Then I suppose tonight is the night everyone discovers how badly I’ve been lying.”

He pushed the remote.

The bedroom lights went out.

A moment later, the door burst open.

Two armed men entered.

“Don’t move!” one shouted.

Maxwell lifted his hands.

“Gentlemen. You seem confused.”

The first man aimed his weapon at Maxwell’s chest.

“Stand up.”

Maxwell looked at me.

“Now, Martha.”

I didn’t understand.

Then I saw his right hand move toward the wheelchair’s control panel.

His fingers pressed a concealed latch.

The chair’s footrests dropped.

Maxwell gripped the armrests.

And slowly, painfully, he rose.

The first man went white.

“What the hell—”

Maxwell took one unsteady step forward.

Then another.

He was shaking. His legs were weak, and sweat glistened across his forehead.

But he was standing.

For fourteen months, the world had believed Maxwell Rourke would never walk again.

For fourteen months, his enemies had grown comfortable.

And now, as he stood between me and the men sent to kill us, I understood why he had hidden his recovery.

They hadn’t merely wanted him disabled.

They had wanted him to remain alive long enough to sign something.

Maxwell lunged for the nearest gun.

The room exploded into chaos.

I ducked as a bullet shattered the mirror. Maxwell struck the first man with the wheelchair’s metal frame, then twisted away as the second man fired.

He stumbled.

I caught his arm.

“Move!” I shouted.

Together, we crashed through the bedroom door and ran toward the wardrobe.

Except Maxwell wasn’t running very well.

Every step looked agonizing. His knees trembled, and his breathing became ragged.

I helped him through the hidden pᴀssage just as more footsteps thundered down the hall.

Behind us, one of the men shouted, “He can walk! Tell Adrian he can walk!”

Maxwell slammed the secret door shut.

A metallic lock clicked into place.

We descended a narrow staircase into darkness.

At the bottom, Maxwell leaned against the stone wall, fighting for breath.

“Can you keep going?” I asked.

He nodded, though I could see the pain in his face.

“There’s something you need to understand.”

“Not now.”

“Now.” He gripped my arm. “If we escape tonight, you must never trust anyone who tells you your father betrayed me.”

I stared at him.

“Why would anyone say that?”

“Because your father didn’t steal the money.”

He reached inside his bathrobe and pulled out the folded document.

“He discovered who was stealing it. And before he disappeared, he left behind a witness.”

“Who?”

Maxwell looked toward the far end of the cellar.

A door stood slightly open.

A thin line of yellow light spilled across the stone floor.

“Someone Adrian believes has been ᴅᴇᴀᴅ for twelve years.”

We approached the door cautiously.

Maxwell pushed it open.

Inside the old wine cellar, a woman sat tied to a wooden chair. Her silver hair hung across her face. Blood stained the sleeve of her white blouse.

She lifted her head when we entered.

I recognized her immediately.

My mother.

For a second, the entire world stopped.

“Mom?”

Her eyes filled with tears.

“Martha, darling…”

I rushed toward her, but Maxwell caught my shoulder.

“Wait.”

My mother flinched at his voice.

Then she looked at him with such naked hatred that I stepped back.

“You,” she whispered.

Maxwell went still.

“You know me?”

My mother laughed bitterly.

“Know you? I spent twelve years praying that someone would put a bullet through your heart.”

I looked between them, horrified.

“Mom, what is she talking about?”

She turned to me.

“I tried to keep you away from this family. I changed our names. I buried your father’s pH๏τographs. I told you he was ᴅᴇᴀᴅ because I thought the truth would get you killed.”

“Was he murdered?”

She closed her eyes.

“Yes.”

The word shattered something inside me.

“Who killed him?”

My mother looked at Maxwell.

Then she said the sentence that changed everything.

“Maxwell Rourke’s father ordered it.”

Maxwell’s face drained of color.

“My father died before your husband disappeared.”

“He didn’t die when the newspapers said he did,” my mother replied. “He staged his death to escape prosecution. Adrian helped him.”

Maxwell staggered backward.

“That is impossible.”

“Is it?” My mother pulled against her restraints. “Then tell me why your father transferred his entire private fortune into an account opened under your name three days before the accident.”

Maxwell stared at her.

“What account?”

My mother smiled through her tears.

“The account your brother has been trying to make you sign over for fourteen months.”

A terrible silence followed.

Suddenly, every piece of the puzzle shifted.

The accident.

The medication.

The inheritance meeting.

Adrian’s obsession with Maxwell’s recovery.

They weren’t simply trying to steal the empire.

They needed Maxwell alive because his signature controlled a fortune that could expose crimes committed across two generations.

But there was still one question I couldn’t understand.

“Why did Adrian hire me?”

My mother looked at me with unbearable sadness.

“Because your father hid the proof inside something he knew you’d keep.”

I thought of the brᴀss key.

My childhood bedroom.

The old music box my father had given me for my tenth birthday—the one I had carried from home to home after he vanished.

I had kept it for twelve years.

I had never opened the tiny compartment beneath its velvet lining.

My hands began to shake.

“Where is it?”

“At home,” I whispered. “In my apartment.”

Maxwell looked at his watch.

“Then we have less than an hour.”

“Until what?”

He turned toward the staircase.

“Until Adrian’s men find us.”

My mother suddenly began struggling against her ropes.

“No. You don’t understand. The account isn’t the only thing your father hid.”

She looked directly at me.

“He left a recording. It proves who ordered the accident, who killed your father, and who has been controlling the Rourke family from the beginning.”

“Where is it?”

Her lips trembled.

“Inside the music box.”

A sound came from the pᴀssage behind us.

Three slow claps.

We turned.

Adrian stood at the top of the stairs, holding a pistol.

Two armed men flanked him.

His face wore the same pleasant smile I had seen in the hallway.

“Very touching,” he said. “Family reunions always make me emotional.”

Maxwell moved in front of me.

“Let them go, Adrian.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

Adrian descended the stairs slowly.

“You’ve made this unnecessarily complicated, brother. All you had to do was remain paralyzed, sign the papers, and die peacefully in your sleep.”

Maxwell’s hands curled into fists.

“You poisoned me.”

“I preserved you.” Adrian’s smile sharpened. “There is a difference.”

“You murdered Samuel.”

“Samuel was a fool.”

“And Daniel Kovak?”

Adrian’s expression changed.

Only for a moment.

But it was enough.

My mother began to cry.

Adrian sighed.

“Your father was an accountant who stumbled into a world he couldn’t understand. He should have taken the money and kept his mouth shut.”

I felt something inside me turn cold.

“You killed my father.”

Adrian looked at me.

“No, Martha. I merely gave the order.”

The words were so casual that they almost didn’t sound real.

I lunged toward him.

Maxwell caught me before I could reach the stairs.

“Don’t,” he whispered.

Adrian raised his pistol.

“Now, Maxwell. The documents.”

Maxwell reached inside his bathrobe and withdrew the medical report.

Adrian laughed.

“That’s not what I want.”

“What do you want?”

“The original transfer agreement. Your father’s signature. Your signature. And the recording.”

Maxwell’s expression hardened.

“You don’t get any of them.”

Adrian’s smile vanished.

He pointed the gun at my mother.

“Then she dies first.”

I screamed.

“Stop!”

Adrian looked at me.

“Tell me where the music box is, Martha.”

I said nothing.

He pressed the pistol against my mother’s temple.

“Ten seconds.”

Maxwell shifted his weight.

I saw his right leg tremble.

He couldn’t fight three armed men. Not yet. Even standing was costing him everything.

But then I remembered the remote in his wheelchair.

The hidden controls.

The things he had prepared during fourteen months of pretending to be helpless.

I looked toward the pᴀssage.

His wheelchair was still upstairs.

Unless—

A loud metallic crash echoed from the hallway above us.

The lights flickered.

One of Adrian’s men turned toward the sound.

Maxwell moved.

He crossed the space between them in a desperate burst of speed, striking the nearest man’s wrist. The gun hit the stone floor.

I grabbed my mother’s chair and pulled it sideways as the second man fired.

The bullet struck a wine barrel.

Glᴀss shattered.

Adrian swore and turned his weapon toward Maxwell.

Then my mother did something I will never forget.

She threw herself against Adrian’s legs.

He stumbled.

The gun fired.

And Maxwell fell.

“MAXWELL!”

He lay on the stone floor, one hand pressed against his side.

Blood spread between his fingers.

Adrian scrambled to his feet, his expression twisted with fury.

“You stupid woman!”

He raised the gun toward my mother.

I grabbed the fallen weapon and pointed it at him with both hands.

“Don’t move!”

Adrian froze.

For the first time, his smile disappeared completely.

“You don’t know how to use that,” he said.

“Maybe not.”

My hands were shaking so violently I could barely keep the gun steady.

“But I know what happens if you take one more step.”

He studied me.

Then he laughed.

“You really think Maxwell will protect you? Ask him what happened to the last woman who trusted him.”

I glanced at Maxwell.

His face had gone pale.

“Adrian,” he warned.

But his brother continued.

“Ask him why your father was so desperate to get you away from the Rourkes. Ask him what Maxwell did the night Daniel Kovak disappeared.”

My heart hammered.

“Maxwell?”

He looked at me.

There was blood on his lips.

And in his eyes, I saw something worse than fear.

Guilt.

Adrian took advantage of my hesitation.

He lunged for the gun.

I fired.

The sH๏τ struck the ceiling.

Everyone ducked.

When I looked up again, Adrian was gone.

The pᴀssage door slammed behind him.

For several seconds, I could only hear my own breathing.

Then Maxwell groaned.

I dropped beside him.

“Stay with me.”

He tried to smile.

“You’re very bad at following instructions.”

“Shut up.”

I pressed my hands against his wound, desperately trying to stop the bleeding.

“Why did Adrian say you knew what happened to my father?”

Maxwell closed his eyes.

“Because he’s right.”

The words were barely audible.

My hands stopped moving.

“What?”

He opened his eyes again.

“Your father came to me the night he disappeared. He had the recording. He wanted protection for your mother and you.”

“Did you help him?”

Maxwell swallowed.

“I promised him I would.”

“Then what happened?”

His eyes filled with something I had never imagined seeing in them.

Shame.

“I betrayed him.”

I pulled my hands away as if his blood had burned me.

“No.”

“I was twenty-four. I thought I could control my father. I thought if I gave him Daniel’s location, I could negotiate a deal and keep everyone safe.”

His voice broke.

“My father found Daniel before I could reach him.”

I stared at the man lying in front of me.

The man I had risked my life to save.

The man whose secret had dragged me into a nightmare.

“You knew where my father was.”

“Yes.”

“And you let me believe he was ᴅᴇᴀᴅ without knowing the truth?”

Maxwell looked at me helplessly.

“I was afraid you’d never forgive me.”

I stood.

For the first time, I wasn’t looking at a mafia boss.

I was looking at the man who had helped destroy my family.

Behind me, my mother whispered my name.

I couldn’t answer her.

Then Maxwell reached weakly toward my hand.

“There is one more thing.”

I wanted to walk away.

I wanted to leave him bleeding on the cellar floor and never see his face again.

But something in his voice stopped me.

“What?”

He looked toward the door Adrian had used.

“Your father didn’t die that night.”

I froze.

“What did you say?”

“Adrian lied about the order. My father wanted Daniel alive because the recording was incomplete. They kept him hidden for years, trying to force him to reveal where he had concealed the original evidence.”

My mother began sobbing.

“No…”

Maxwell struggled to breathe.

“Six months ago, I found a message in an encrypted account. It was from a man claiming to be Daniel Kovak.”

I stared at him.

“You knew my father might be alive?”

“I didn’t know if the message was genuine.”

“Where is he?”

Maxwell reached into his pocket and pulled out a small pH๏τograph.

It showed an older man standing outside a remote building, his hair streaked with gray.

His face was thinner than I remembered.

But I knew those eyes.

I had seen them every night in my dreams since childhood.

My father.

On the back of the pH๏τograph were six words written in blue ink.

MARTHA, DON’T TRUST THE MAN YOU LOVE.

I looked up sharply.

“I don’t love anyone here.”

Maxwell’s gaze held mine.

“Not yet.”

Before I could answer, my mother’s phone began ringing.

The screen showed an unknown number.

She stared at it, trembling.

Then she answered.

A man’s voice came through the speaker.

“Martha?”

I stopped breathing.

It was a voice I had spent twelve years trying not to forget.

My father’s voice.

“Sweetheart, listen carefully. You have to get out of that house immediately.”

Tears streamed down my face.

“Dad? Where are you?”

“I don’t have much time. Adrian is coming for you, and Maxwell has already told you half the truth.”

I looked at Maxwell.

He closed his eyes.

My father continued.

“The accident wasn’t arranged to steal the empire. The money was a distraction. Adrian wanted Maxwell unable to speak because he discovered what happened to our family.”

“What happened?”

A long silence followed.

Then my father whispered:

“Your mother isn’t your mother, Martha.”

The phone slipped from my hand.

My mother made a strangled sound.

Maxwell tried to sit up.

And from somewhere behind the cellar wall came three sharp knocks.

My father spoke again, his voice suddenly frantic.

“Don’t let them open the door. Whatever you do, don’t let them see the mark on your shoulder.”

I looked down at myself.

The collar of my uniform had slipped aside during the struggle.

Beneath it, just above my shoulder blade, was a small birthmark shaped like a crescent moon.

I had always ᴀssumed it was ordinary.

But my mother was staring at it as though she had seen a ghost.

Then she whispered something that made the blood drain from my face.

“Oh, God. They found her.”

A hidden panel in the cellar wall began to slide open.

Behind it stood an elderly man in a dark suit, holding a pH๏τograph.

He looked at me with tears in his eyes.

Then he bowed his head.

“Your Highness,” he whispered. “We’ve been searching for you for twenty-two years.”

And suddenly, the mafia empire, the fake paralysis, my father’s disappearance, and my mother’s desperate lies seemed like pieces of a much larger conspiracy.

Because I wasn’t merely the daughter of a murdered accountant.

I was the missing heir to a fortune powerful enough to bring down the Rourke family—and someone had spent twenty-two years making sure I never discovered it.

But the old man wasn’t finished.

He looked at Maxwell, then at the blood soaking through his shirt.

“I’m afraid we’re too late,” he said.

I grabbed his sleeve.

“Too late for what?”

He opened the pH๏τograph.

It showed a young woman holding a newborn baby. Beside her stood a man whose face was unmistakably Maxwell’s.

On the back, someone had written a date.

The date of my birth.

And beneath it, one final sentence:

THE CHILD BELONGS TO MAXWELL ROURKE.

I stared at the pH๏τograph.

Then at Maxwell.

He looked as shocked as I felt.

My mother covered her mouth.

And from the darkness beyond the hidden door, a familiar voice spoke.

“Now you understand why I couldn’t let him walk.”

Adrian stepped into the light.

But this time, he wasn’t holding a gun.

He was holding a little girl’s hand.

A girl with my crescent-shaped birthmark.

A girl who looked exactly like me.

And she was smiling.

“Hello, Martha,” she said. “I’ve been waiting for you to come home.”

TO BE CONTINUED… 🖤😱

Who is the little girl—and why does she have Martha’s birthmark? Is Maxwell really her father, or is the pH๏τograph part of an even darker lie? And if Martha is the missing heir, what will happen when she discovers who has been ruling her life from the shadows all along?