Chapter 10 - The Truth About the Night We Met
Victor was dead.
But secrets survived him.
The federal investigation exploded across Chicago.
Judges resigned.
Officers were arrested.
Businessmen disappeared.
Families learned truths they had spent decades unknowingly living without.
The Cradle Ledger became one of the largest corruption cases Illinois had seen in years.
But one mystery still belonged to me.
The night Stellan and I met.
Cassandra finally explained it.
She had invited me to the gala because my father left a message.
“If anything happens to me, protect Selene from Victor Cross.”
Cassandra had watched me from a distance for years.
When Victor’s men began following me, she brought Stellan to the gala.
She wanted him to protect me.
She never intended us to fall in love.
Neither did we.
Maybe that was why it happened.
Stellan and I returned to the hotel balcony where we first kissed.
The hotel had been renovated.
The city looked different.
We did too.
“I should have found you,” he said.
“You couldn’t.”
“I could have tried harder.”
“Yes.”
He looked surprised.
I smiled slightly.
“You don’t get forgiven by pretending you didn’t make mistakes.”
“I know.”
“But you came back.”
“I didn’t know I was coming back to you.”
“And now?”
He looked at me.
“Now I don’t know how to leave.”
I wanted to kiss him.
Instead, I asked the question that mattered.
“What happens to Fern?”
His expression softened.
“Cassandra wants you to remain her legal mother.”
I stared.
“What?”
“She says Fern has had enough people deciding who her family should be.”
Tears filled my eyes.
“And Rose?”
“Anna wants to talk.”
That conversation was harder.
Anna had raised Rose.
Loved her.
Changed her diapers.
Held her through fevers.
I could not erase her.
So I didn’t.
We created something unusual.
Something messy.
Something human.
Rose would know both of us.
No more lies.
No more stolen mothers.
No more children used as weapons.
When I returned to the mansion that evening, Fern crawled across the floor toward me.
Rose sat nearby.
Two babies.
One born from my body.
One born into my heart.
Stellan stood behind them.
May you like
For the first time, the mansion did not feel like a place where families were destroyed.
It felt like somewhere one might begin.
