Chapter 12 - VANESSA’S REAL REASON
Vanessa contacted me that night.
No warning.
No attorney.
Just one text.
I know you found Hannah’s letter.
A second message arrived.
Ethan lied to both of us.
Luka wanted to trace the phone.
Mara wanted Vanessa arrested for coercing Grace.
I wanted answers.
We arranged a meeting in a public parking garage with security watching from every entrance.
Vanessa arrived alone.
Without expensive clothes or perfect makeup, she looked exhausted.
“You hate me.”
She said.
“I don’t have enough energy left to hate you.”
She flinched.
“I didn’t sleep with Ethan because I loved him.”
“I figured that out.”
“I got close to him because I found my mother’s old files.”
Vanessa’s eyes filled.
“I discovered M-17 two years ago.”
“You knew he was your brother?”
“Biologically.”
She looked sick saying it.
“I stopped the relationship before it became physical.”
“He told everyone we were having an affair because it made you distrust me and protected why I was really around him.”
I stared at her.
Ethan had staged even his own betrayal.
“He left the hospital with you.”
“Because I told him I had found M-18.”
Luka stepped closer.
Vanessa reached slowly into her bag.
She removed a small hard drive.
“I lied.”
“I didn’t have it then.”
“I was trying to make him confess.”
“Instead, he admitted he knew about my mother.”
My heart hammered.
“Did he kill her?”
Vanessa began crying.
“No.”
The answer surprised me.
“Richard did.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Ethan recorded him.”
She held up the drive.
“Ethan has been blackmailing his father for nine years.”
Everything shifted again.
Ethan had known Richard ordered Hannah’s death.
Instead of going to police, he used it to gain money and control.
Vanessa continued.
“That’s how Ethan became CEO.”
“That’s how he got voting shares.”
“That’s how he controlled the hospital.”
“He didn’t protect the truth.”
“He sold his silence.”
I looked at the drive.
“What’s on it?”
“Enough to destroy Richard.”
“And Ethan.”
“Why give it to me?”
Vanessa wiped her face.
“Because Ethan just called me.”
“He knows your father is alive.”
Luka’s posture changed instantly.
“Where is Ethan?”
“I don’t know.”
Then Vanessa looked at me.
“But he knows where your father was taken.”
My phone rang.
It was Dad.
I answered immediately.
There was no voice.
Only the sound of something breaking.
Then Ethan spoke.
“Claire.”
My blood froze.
“I told you not to open the file.”
I gripped the phone.
“Where is my father?”
Ethan answered calmly.
“Bring me M-17.”
“Come alone.”
May you like
“Or this time, your father actually disappears.”
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