Chapter 1 - The Bloodstained Uniform and the Photograph That Changed Everything
Grace Collins never imagined that discovering a family secret could cost her life.
She was twenty-nine, working as a maid in the luxurious Boston-area mansion of Nathaniel DeLuca, one of New England's most feared Mafia bosses.
Grace needed the job desperately. Her younger brother depended on expensive rehabilitation treatments, and every paycheck helped keep him in care.
But Nathaniel's beautiful fiancée, Brianna Whitmore, knew exactly how to use that desperation.
During an engagement celebration attended by nearly two hundred guests, Brianna forced Grace to serve drinks despite three bleeding cuts across her stomach.
"Take off that jacket," Brianna ordered. "And don't embarrass me."
When Nathaniel noticed blood soaking through Grace's white uniform, Brianna claimed it was raspberry syrup.
Nathaniel wasn't convinced.
"Since when does raspberry syrup bleed through clothing from the inside?"
He immediately summoned a doctor and ordered Grace to receive proper care.
Later, the kitchen manager confirmed that no syrup had been prepared and no bottles had broken.
Confronted with the truth, Grace admitted that Brianna had attacked her after catching her inside Nathaniel's private library.
Grace had discovered Brianna burning confidential documents belonging to Nathaniel's late father.
One surviving page was labeled:
CONFIDENTIAL PATERNITY DETERMINATION.
Another sentence claimed that a previously reported biological relationship had been deliberately misrepresented.
The papers dated back eleven years, to the year Nathaniel's father died.
When Nathaniel confronted Brianna, a message appeared on her phone.
HE FOUND THE MAID. WE HAVE TO MOVE TONIGHT.
Then Charles Russell, his late father's longtime attorney, called with a warning.
"It's not about who your father was, Nathaniel."
"Then what?"
"It's about who you really are."
At that moment, Grace appeared with an old photograph left by an unidentified woman.
It showed Nathaniel's father holding a newborn beside a woman whose face had been torn away.
Five words were written on the back.
THE CHILD WAS NEVER OURS.
Nathaniel demanded to know the identity of the woman.
May you like
Russell began to answer.
And every light in the mansion went out.
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