Chapter 6 - The Daughter Julian Never Knew
Julian arrived at St. Catherine’s shortly after midnight.
He read the report without speaking.
The blood left his face.
“This is impossible.”
The test was dated thirty years earlier. Julian would have been thirteen when I was born.
He could not be my biological father.
Detective Bennett agreed.
“The report was created to hide someone else.”
The laboratory identification number led to a genetics clinic once owned by Malcolm Vance. Its records had been destroyed in a flood, but the St. Catherine’s archive preserved the summary.
The test compared the infant with Eleanor and Julian.
It showed a close family connection, then classified Julian as the father because the system lacked another male Sterling profile.
The actual father was likely a close male relative of Julian’s.
His father, Arthur Sterling.
Or an unknown brother.
Eleanor revealed the answer from her hospital bed.
Arthur Sterling had another son.
Gabriel.
He was born before Julian and raised by Arthur’s younger brother after a family scandal. Public records identified him as Gabriel Price.
The same surname used by the woman who entered Bellweather as Eleanor Price.
Gabriel disappeared thirty one years earlier.
One year before my birth.
“Was he Elena’s husband?” I asked.
Eleanor looked away.
“No.”
“Then who was my mother?”
“Marianne.”
The woman who raised me as Anna Mercer had told me she was my mother.
Eleanor now claimed that part was true.
Marianne Sterling was my biological mother.
Gabriel Sterling, her secret half brother, was my father.
The family had hidden both relationships because the child would expose Arthur Sterling’s second family and a forbidden relationship inside the dynasty.
Julian stood near the window, shaken.
“Maya is my niece.”
“Yes.”
“Why did you tell us Elena was her mother?”
“Because that is what Arthur ordered me to say after Marianne disappeared.”
Eleanor’s memories had been damaged by years of medication. Her first version followed the lie repeated to her for decades. The hospital DNA report triggered something clearer.
Marianne gave birth to me at St. Catherine’s.
Elena helped her escape with the baby.
Malcolm Vance intercepted them at Bellweather House.
One sister fled with me.
The other was captured.
Eleanor no longer remembered which one escaped.
The woman I knew as Anna could have been either Marianne or Elena.
The orchid ring belonged to Marianne.
The initials proved it.
But possession did not prove identity.
The sisters looked nearly identical.
One was my mother.
One was my aunt.
One might still be alive.
Julian paced the hospital room.
“Gabriel died before Maya was born.”
“Who told you?” Bennett asked.
“My father.”
No body.
No funeral Julian attended.
Another disappearance accepted as death because Arthur Sterling said so.
We searched old newspapers.
Gabriel Price had worked as an investigative accountant. He accused Malcolm Vance of stealing from the Sterling children’s trust.
Weeks later, his boat exploded near Montauk.
The case was closed without recovering remains.
Gabriel and Marianne were not merely hiding a forbidden relationship.
They were investigating the same theft that caused the family collapse.
Their child would inherit claims from both branches of the Sterling estate.
My existence threatened everyone who profited from the missing trust.
The hotel placed Lily and me in a secured suite before dawn.
Julian remained in another building.
He respected my demand for distance, but I knew his security team watched the entrance from across the street.
At seven, Richard called from an unknown number.
I almost refused.
Detective Bennett asked me to answer while she recorded.
Richard sounded sober.
“Maya, I did not know who you were.”
“You knew someone wanted you to humiliate me.”
“I thought it was about Julian’s development deal.”
“You dragged my face through our daughter’s cake for money.”
“I lost control.”
“No. You followed instructions.”
He was silent.
Then he said Paige Nolan had contacted him months earlier. She promised to clear his debts if he convinced me to sign a marital asset amendment.
Richard had tried three times.
I refused without understanding why.
The amendment would have transferred any future inheritance into a joint trust controlled by him.
When I continued refusing, Paige changed the plan.
Public humiliation at Bellweather would trigger Julian’s recognition.
Then Richard would claim I was emotionally unstable and seek control through marriage.
The guardianship petition would give Julian temporary authority.
Both paths led to someone other than me controlling the money.
Richard and Julian were being positioned against each other.
“Who is Paige working for?” I asked.
“She never said.”
“What does she look like?”
He described a woman in her fifties with dark red hair and a scar near her left temple.
The same location as mine.
I sent the description to Julian.
He responded with an old family photograph.
Elena Sterling had dark red hair after leaving college.
She carried a scar beside her left temple from the same childhood accident that marked me.
Paige Nolan might be Elena Sterling.
My missing aunt.
Or my mother.
Richard lowered his voice.
“She is inside your hotel.”
May you like
The suite door handle moved.
Continue to the next part: The woman who engineered Richard’s cruelty arrives at Maya’s hotel claiming to be the Sterling sister who raised her.
