Chapter 8 - Sarah Cole’s Will
Sarah Cole had died eight months earlier.
Cancer.
Ryan had lived with his aunt Jenna since then.
Sarah’s will was simple except for one sealed addendum.
Jenna placed it on her kitchen table.
“I promised Sarah I’d show this to you if Daniel ever tried to take Ryan.”
My hands went cold.
The addendum named Daniel Bennett as Ryan’s biological father.
It also revealed something Daniel had never told anyone outside the Cole family.
Sarah had inherited shares in Bennett Development years earlier from her father, one of the company’s original investors.
Those shares were now Ryan’s.
Eleven percent of the company.
Enough to matter.
A lot.
And Daniel had been quietly negotiating a merger.
If Ryan’s ownership became public before the deal closed, a court-appointed guardian would have to approve any transaction affecting the child’s shares.
Daniel’s clean, simple business deal would become complicated.
Possibly delayed.
Possibly dead.
I looked at Jenna.
“Was Daniel trying to hide Ryan because of money?”
“Partly.”
My chest tightened.
“What’s the other part?”
Jenna pushed a second envelope toward me.
Inside was a DNA report.
Daniel’s paternity probability exceeded 99.9 percent.
Attached to it was an email Sarah had written Daniel shortly before her death.
Ryan deserves to be acknowledged before I’m gone.
Daniel’s reply was brutal.
Give me until after the merger.
I read it twice.
Then a third time.
He had asked a dying woman to keep their child hidden for a business deal.
Vanessa knew about the merger.
She knew Ryan’s shares.
She knew Daniel wanted to keep his paternity quiet.
Suddenly her plan became clearer.
If she could destroy my marriage, expose Ryan, and make herself indispensable to Daniel during the company crisis, she believed she could step into the life I left behind.
But she had underestimated something.
Sarah had documented everything.
Including one final email.
Sarah wrote:
Vanessa keeps asking questions about Ryan’s shares. I don’t trust her.
The date was six days before Sarah died.
May you like
Vanessa had been interested in Ryan long before she claimed she even knew him.
👉 Sarah had seen Vanessa coming months before any of us did—and she had left behind one final warning that could destroy Vanessa’s entire story.
