CHAPTER 2 — The Crest That Should Not Exist
CHAPTER 2 — The Crest That Should Not Exist
The ballroom didn’t recover from that sentence.
“She’s my sister.”
It echoed like a gunshot under crystal chandeliers.
The woman in blue staggered back a step, her lips trembling for the first time that night.
“That’s impossible…” she whispered.
But the young man wasn’t looking at her anymore.
He was looking at the little girl.
At the silver crest still clutched in her tiny hands.
A crest that was supposed to be locked inside a family vault.
For three generations.
“No outsider has ever touched that symbol,” he said slowly.
His voice dropped.
“This means someone inside our family… gave it to her.”
The girl stepped back, frightened.
“I didn’t steal it,” she cried. “Mommy gave it to me…”
That word changed everything.
Mommy.
The man froze.
Because his mother had been declared dead seven years ago.
Yet the crest in the child’s hand… was last seen buried with her.
The woman in blue suddenly laughed.
A sharp, broken sound.
“Do you even hear yourself?” she said. “You’re letting a dirty orphan rewrite your entire bloodline.”
But the man didn’t answer.
Because his phone had just vibrated.
A message from an unknown number.
“If the girl is in the ballroom… then the truth is already too late.”
And attached was a photo.
A woman lying in a hospital bed.
Holding a newborn baby.
The man zoomed in.
And nearly dropped his phone.
Because the woman in that photo…
May you like
was supposed to be dead.
And she was smiling.
