The first thing Nico told me was that my father’s funeral had been built on a lie.

The second was that Grace Miller wasn’t her real name.

And the third made me question every memory I had of my childhood.

“Your father had another daughter.”

I stared at him.

“What?”

Nico closed the hospital service elevator behind us.

“Her name was Elena Moretti.”

My heart pounded.

I remembered Elena.

A little girl with dark curls who used to visit our estate every summer.

My father called her the daughter of an old friend.

She taught me how to climb trees.

She stole strawberries from the kitchen.

And when I was twelve, she disappeared.

My father said her family had moved overseas.

I never saw her again.

“Grace is Elena?”

Nico nodded.

I pressed my hand against the elevator wall.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I thought she was dead.”

The elevator descended.

Nico explained everything.

Twenty-three years earlier, my father had discovered that his business partner, Richard Hale, was stealing money through a network of shell companies.

Richard was Veronica’s father.

When my father threatened to expose him, Elena’s mother was killed in a suspicious house fire.

Elena disappeared the same night.

My father spent years searching.

He died believing both were gone.

But Elena had survived.

She had been placed with another family, given a new identity, and taught to forget the Moretti name.

“Then how did she find me?”

“She found your father’s old letters.”

Nico swallowed.

“She came to me eight months ago.”

I stared at him.

“You knew?”

“I knew who she claimed to be. I couldn’t prove it.”

“And you let her work as my maid?”

“She insisted. She said someone inside your home was planning something terrible.”

The elevator opened into an underground parking garage.

A black SUV waited with its engine running.

Nico helped me inside.

“Where’s Grace?”

His silence was answer enough.

“Find her.”

“We’re trying.”

“Try harder.”

He climbed into the passenger seat.

As we drove into the night, I noticed something unusual.

The city looked normal.

People laughed outside bars.

Taxis honked.

Couples walked beneath streetlights.

Meanwhile, my fiancée had tried to murder me, my cousin had betrayed me, and my dead driver had returned with a secret sister.

I almost laughed.

Then Nico handed me a tablet.

“There’s something else.”

A security recording appeared.

The date was six days earlier.

One day before my crash.

My penthouse garage.

A man in a mechanic’s uniform approached my Bentley.

He opened the hood.

Then another figure entered the frame.

Anthony.

My cousin watched the mechanic work.

When the man finished, Anthony handed him an envelope.

I watched the video twice.

Then a third time.

“Why didn’t you show me this before?”

“Because the recording was recovered only tonight.”

“From where?”

“Grace’s phone.”

My stomach tightened.

“Grace recorded it?”

Nico shook his head.

“She copied it from the building’s security archive.”

I leaned forward.

“Then why did she stay quiet?”

“Because she was collecting evidence.”

“Against Anthony?”

Nico hesitated.

“Against everyone.”

He opened another file.

A photograph appeared.

Grace standing outside a restaurant.

Across from her sat Dr. Whitmore.

The date was two weeks before the crash.

I felt something inside me break.

“She knew him.”

“Yes.”

“Did she tell you?”

“No.”

I stared at the picture.

Grace had held my hand when everyone else abandoned me.

She had warned me about Friday.

She had risked her life.

But now I was looking at proof that she’d met privately with the man who wanted me dead.

Nico touched my shoulder.

“Boss, there’s more.”

He played an audio recording.

Whitmore’s voice filled the SUV.

“The deadline remains Friday.”

Then Grace spoke.

“I understand.”

“You know what happens if Dominic survives?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re prepared?”

A long silence.

Then Grace answered.

“I’ve waited twenty-three years for this.”

The recording ended.

I couldn’t breathe.

Not because of my injuries.

Because the only person I thought I could trust had apparently been planning something for more than two decades.

“Turn the car around,” I ordered.

Nico frowned.

“Where?”

“My penthouse.”

“It’s not safe.”

“Neither is anywhere else.”

Twenty minutes later, we entered my private elevator.

The penthouse was dark.

My security team had vanished.

Fresh flowers sat on the dining table.

Lilies.

Grace hated lilies.

Someone had been waiting for me.

On the dining table lay a photograph.

A little boy.

A little girl.

Standing beside my father.

I recognized myself immediately.

The girl was Elena.

Grace.

But the photograph had been cut down the middle and carefully taped together.

On the back, someone had written:

“One child inherited the empire. The other inherited the truth.”

Then my television switched on.

Veronica appeared on the screen.

She was sitting in a room I didn’t recognize.

Her mascara had run down her cheeks.

“Dominic,” she whispered, “if you’re watching this, Grace has already betrayed you.”

She lifted something toward the camera.

A hospital identification bracelet.

Grace’s bracelet.

Then Veronica leaned closer.

“And before you decide which woman to believe, you should know something.”

She paused.

“Your sister wasn’t the person your father was trying to protect.”

My blood went cold.

“She was the person he was hiding you from.”