Chapter 7 - The Daughter Who Was Raised Under Another Name
"My daughter?"
Grace stared at the words inside the sweater.
Nathaniel looked toward Charles Russell.
"You told us Lily was Victor's niece's child."
"She was."
"Then why would Diane call her daughter?"
Russell closed his eyes.
"Because Diane raised her."
Grace felt her knees weaken.
"What?"
"After Marianne died, Lily spent almost two years in a temporary foster placement. Your mother took her in."
Nathaniel turned toward Grace.
"Before you were born?"
"Yes," Russell answered.
Grace stared at the paper.
"My mother never told me."
Russell's voice softened.
"She was afraid telling you would put Lily in danger."
Grace sat down.
Another lost sibling.
Not by blood this time, but by the family her mother had tried to create.
"How did Lily end up with another family?"
Russell looked ashamed.
"Thomas learned Diane was caring for her. He accused her of violating an old confidentiality agreement connected to the twins."
Nathaniel's expression hardened.
"And he used Daniel's medical bills again."
Russell nodded.
"Thomas knew how to make people believe they had no choices."
Grace gripped the little paper.
"Did my mother give Lily away?"
"No. She tried to keep her. But Thomas arranged a new guardianship order, and Lily was moved before Diane could challenge it."
Nathaniel stood.
"What's at this address?"
Russell looked toward the window.
"A woman who may finally be ready to tell you what happened."
The address led to a small blue house in a quiet neighborhood outside Worcester.
There were flowerpots on the porch and a wooden bench beneath a maple tree.
Nathaniel arrived with Grace and Aaron.
An older woman answered the door.
She had silver hair and wore a pale green cardigan.
"Mrs. Mercer?" Nathaniel asked.
"Yes."
"I'm Nathaniel DeLuca."
The woman's face changed.
She looked at Grace.
Then she gripped the doorframe.
"You're Diane's daughter."
Grace nodded slowly.
"Did you know my mother?"
The woman began crying.
"Oh, sweetheart. I knew her better than almost anyone."
She stepped aside.
"Please come in."
Inside, photographs covered the living room walls.
School graduations.
Birthday parties.
Holiday dinners.
And in nearly every picture stood a dark-haired woman with kind brown eyes.
Grace looked at one photograph.
"Is that Lily?"
The older woman nodded.
"My daughter."
Nathaniel studied the image.
Lily appeared to be in her late thirties.
She had Elena's gentle expression and Victor's dark eyes.
"Where is she now?" he asked.
Mrs. Mercer sat down heavily.
"Working."
"Where?"
The woman hesitated.
"Before I answer, I need to know why you're here."
Grace carefully placed the blue sweater on the coffee table.
"My mother kept this."
Mrs. Mercer stared.
Her hands began shaking.
"She never threw it away."
"No," Grace whispered.
Mrs. Mercer touched the fabric.
"Diane knitted that sweater for the little boy they took from her. When Lily was a baby, she used to hold it and say all children deserved to be loved."
Grace wiped away a tear.
"Mom always said things like that."
Mrs. Mercer looked at Nathaniel.
"Diane never stopped looking for you."
He couldn't speak.
"She tried to contact your family several times. Every letter came back unopened."
Nathaniel felt anger rising again.
"Thomas?"
"And Martin," Mrs. Mercer said.
Nathaniel closed his eyes.
The man who had taught him to drive had also prevented him from receiving letters from his birth mother.
Mrs. Mercer brought out a battered photograph album.
Inside were pictures of Lily as a child.
In one, she sat on Diane's lap beside a Christmas tree.
In another, she held hands with a younger Daniel Collins.
Grace stared.
"My dad."
Mrs. Mercer nodded.
"He loved Lily like his own."
Grace pressed her lips together.
All those years, she'd thought her parents had spent their lives with only two children.
Now she understood how many children they'd tried to protect.
"Why didn't Lily stay with them?" she asked.
Mrs. Mercer looked down.
"Thomas threatened to take Daniel's medical coverage away. Diane had to choose between fighting a powerful man and keeping her husband alive."
Grace shook her head.
"She shouldn't have had to choose."
"No," Mrs. Mercer agreed. "She shouldn't."
Nathaniel leaned forward.
"Did Lily know about her inheritance?"
The older woman nodded.
"Not until she turned thirty."
"What happened then?"
"She hired an attorney. Within three months, she lost her job at a financial firm. Her apartment lease was suddenly terminated. Someone even filed a complaint accusing her of stealing company information."
Aaron exchanged a look with Nathaniel.
"Thomas made sure she couldn't fight him," Aaron said.
Mrs. Mercer nodded.
"Lily stopped trying after that. She was afraid they'd hurt her family."
"Does she know who I am?" Nathaniel asked.
"Yes."
Nathaniel swallowed.
"Did she ever try to contact me?"
Mrs. Mercer hesitated.
"She did."
"How?"
"She came to your office three years ago."
Nathaniel stared.
"I never met her."
"Your security team turned her away."
Aaron frowned.
"We don't turn people away without recording their names."
Mrs. Mercer looked at him.
"She was told Nathaniel DeLuca wasn't interested in hearing from another person claiming to be family."
Nathaniel's face hardened.
"Who told her that?"
"Martin Hale."
That evening, Nathaniel returned to the mansion with a different understanding of what had happened.
Martin hadn't merely hidden a family secret.
He had actively prevented people from finding one another.
Nathaniel found him in the sitting room.
He placed Lily's childhood photograph on the table.
"She came to see me three years ago."
Martin looked at it.
"Yes."
"You turned her away."
"Yes."
"Why?"
Martin stared at the carpet.
"Because Thomas threatened to expose what we did at the hospital."
Nathaniel leaned closer.
"What exactly did you do, Martin?"
The older man began shaking.
"I helped hide the adoption papers."
"And?"
"I delivered money to the hospital administrator."
"And?"
Martin finally looked up.
"I knew Diane hadn't agreed."
Nathaniel felt his chest tighten.
"You knew from the beginning."
Martin nodded.
"I told myself I was protecting Victor."
Nathaniel stepped backward.
"You weren't protecting him. You were protecting yourself."
Martin began crying.
"I was twenty-six years old. Victor gave me a job when I had nothing. I thought loyalty meant doing whatever he asked."
"And when you were thirty-six? Forty-six? Fifty-six? What excuse did you use then?"
Martin had no answer.
Nathaniel looked at Aaron.
"Take him to the authorities."
Martin stood abruptly.
"Nathaniel, please."
"No."
"Thomas will destroy everything."
Nathaniel shook his head.
"He already has."
Later, Grace found Brianna sitting in the garden.
For a moment, neither woman spoke.
Brianna's eyes were red.
"I heard you found Lily."
"Her mother," Grace answered. "We haven't found Lily herself yet."
Brianna nodded.
She looked down at her bare finger.
"I took the ring off."
Grace said nothing.
Brianna turned toward her.
"I owe you an apology."
"Yes, you do."
"I was afraid of losing my mother. I thought if I did what my father wanted, he'd keep paying for her care."
Grace watched her carefully.
"And you decided my brother's care was something you could threaten."
Brianna wiped her eyes.
"I did."
"Do you understand what that meant to me?"
Brianna nodded.
"Not fully. But I'm beginning to."
Grace looked away.
Brianna continued.
"I contacted Owen's rehabilitation center. I told them I'd threatened his funding."
Grace stared at her.
"Why?"
"Because I didn't want him living with the fear that someone could take his treatment away."
Grace was quiet.
Brianna pulled an envelope from her purse.
"There's a written statement inside. I signed it. It explains what I did to you."
Grace accepted the envelope.
"Does your father know?"
"No."
"He'll be furious."
Brianna gave a small, sad smile.
"He's been furious with me my whole life whenever I did something he didn't choose."
For the first time, Grace saw someone trying to take responsibility rather than escape it.
It didn't make forgiveness easy.
But it changed something.
The next morning, Aaron returned with important news.
He had contacted Lily's employer.
She worked as a financial compliance investigator for a regional nonprofit, helping elderly people recover assets lost through fraud.
Grace smiled faintly.
"That sounds like something Mom would have liked."
Nathaniel nodded.
But Aaron's expression remained serious.
"There's a problem."
"What?"
"Lily left work yesterday after receiving a notice about an urgent investigation involving the DeLuca Family Trust."
Nathaniel stood.
"Who sent the notice?"
"Nobody at the trust."
Aaron placed a printed email on the desk.
"It came from a private account connected to Thomas Whitmore's legal department."
Grace felt cold.
"Where did she go?"
Aaron looked at Nathaniel.
"To a storage facility outside Worcester."
Nathaniel picked up his coat.
"Let's go."
They arrived at a row of rented storage units less than an hour later.
One door stood partly open.
Inside were cardboard boxes, a broken chair, and an old wooden desk.
Lily wasn't there.
Grace noticed something on the floor.
A silver necklace.
Attached was a tiny bluebird pendant.
Beside it lay a folded piece of paper.
Nathaniel opened it.
The message was written in a woman's handwriting.
I KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO ELENA.
Below it was another sentence.
AND IF YOU WANT TO SAVE GRACE, DON'T TRUST THE MAN WHO BROUGHT YOU HERE.
Nathaniel slowly turned.
May you like
Aaron stood behind him.
And for the first time in twenty years, Nathaniel wondered whether his most trusted bodyguard had been hiding something too.
