CHAPTER 3: THE WOMAN THEY BURIED ALIVE
Security moved toward Victoria, but Richard raised one hand.
“No one touches her yet.”
Victoria smiled bitterly.
Still proud.
Still poisonous.
“You think this girl is your daughter because of a bracelet and a photograph?” she said. “How sentimental.”
Richard looked at Sophie.
For the first time, he really looked.
The shape of her eyes.
The curve of her mouth.
The way she held fear in silence.
Eleanor’s silence.
His chest tightened.
Sophie stepped backward.
“This can’t be happening,” she whispered. “My mother is just Eleanor Gray. We live in a one-bedroom apartment. She works when she can. She coughs blood some mornings and tells me not to worry.”
Richard flinched.
“She’s sick?”
Sophie nodded.
Richard turned to his assistant. “Get my car. Now.”
Victoria laughed.
“You still don’t understand, do you?” she said. “Eleanor won’t talk.”
Richard’s eyes narrowed.
“Why?”
Victoria’s smile disappeared.
Thomas answered instead.
“Because she signed papers that night.”
Richard turned to him.
Thomas’s voice shook.
“They drugged her. They told her if she ever came back, her child would disappear. They made her sign away her claim to the Harlow estate.”
Richard stared at Victoria.
“You forged my name.”
Victoria did not deny it.
Sophie felt the world tilting.
She had spent her life counting coins for medicine, wearing secondhand shoes, apologizing for existing.
While this mansion had been hers too.
Richard took one step toward Victoria.
“I want the documents.”
Victoria lifted her chin.
“Burned.”
“No,” Thomas said quietly. “Not all of them.”
Victoria spun toward him.
The old driver reached into his jacket and removed a small envelope.
“I kept copies.”
For the first time, Victoria looked truly terrified.
Richard took the envelope.
Inside were legal papers.
A hospital record.
A private security report.
And a birth certificate.
Sophie Gray.
Mother: Eleanor Harlow.
Father: Richard Harlow.
Sophie’s knees weakened.
Richard caught her before she fell.
She pushed away from him immediately, not out of hatred, but because her life had taught her not to trust hands that reached too quickly.
Richard let go.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Sophie looked at him with wet eyes.
“You didn’t look for her?”
Richard’s face twisted.
“I buried an empty coffin.”
The room went completely still.
Victoria’s eyes closed.
Richard’s voice broke.
“You gave me ashes.”
Victoria opened her eyes.
“I gave you peace.”
“No,” Richard said. “You gave me a lie.”
Sophie looked from one face to the other.
“Why?” she asked.
Victoria turned to her with quiet disgust.
“Because Eleanor was nobody.”
Richard’s face hardened.
Victoria continued, unable to stop herself now.
“She was a secretary. A pretty little girl with a sweet voice and no breeding. He wanted to marry her. He wanted to put her name on everything. The Harlow family would have become a joke.”
“So you erased her,” Sophie said.
Victoria smiled coldly.
“I corrected a mistake.”
Richard’s hand closed around the birth certificate.
“No,” he said. “You made one.”
Police sirens sounded in the distance.
Someone had called them.
Victoria looked toward the front doors.
Then suddenly she grabbed a broken piece of glass from the floor and pressed it to Sophie’s throat.
The guests screamed.
Richard froze.
Victoria’s breath shook against Sophie’s ear.
“Nobody moves.”
Sophie stood perfectly still.
Her bracelet felt cold against her skin.
Richard’s voice dropped.
“Victoria. Let her go.”
Victoria laughed through tears.
“You already lost her once, Richard.”
The doors burst open.
Police rushed in.
Victoria tightened her grip.
And then Sophie did something no one expected.
She whispered, “My mother forgave you.”
Victoria froze.
Sophie’s voice trembled but stayed steady.
“She said whoever hurt her must have been very afraid. She said fear turns people into monsters.”
Victoria’s hand weakened for half a second.
That was enough.
Richard moved.
The police moved faster.
Victoria was pulled away, screaming, while the glass fell harmlessly to the floor.
Sophie collapsed to her knees.
Richard knelt in front of her, afraid to touch her now.
May you like
Afraid to lose her again.
Sophie looked up and whispered, “Take me to my mother.”
