Chapter 8 - The Hospital Lie
Celestine cried when Adrian entered her hospital room.
She had never cried easily.
That alone made him suspicious.
Her shoulder was immobilized.
Her leg was in traction.
A uniformed officer waited outside.
“You came.”
Adrian remained by the door.
“You tried to kill my daughter.”
Celestine’s tears stopped.
“That child has turned you against me already.”
“She’s four.”
“You don’t understand what Maren did.”
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
“I understand the DNA test was fake.”
Celestine stared.
He placed the independent report on her blanket.
Her eyes flicked toward it.
Then away.
“Grandfather was senile.”
“He ordered a second test.”
“Maren manipulated him.”
“The sample was mine.”
Silence.
Adrian stepped closer.
“The lab has a record of your payment.”
Celestine’s face hardened.
Finally the mask cracked.
“You were going to destroy your life.”
“I did destroy my life.”
“For her.”
“For Maren?”
“For my daughter.”
Celestine laughed bitterly.
“You still don’t know everything.”
Adrian said nothing.
So Celestine deployed the final weapon she had prepared.
“Maren knew about the inheritance before she got pregnant.”
Adrian’s face changed slightly.
Celestine saw it.
“She targeted you because Elias’s trust rewarded the first biological grandchild.”
“That trust was amended this year.”
“The version Mercer showed you was.”
Adrian’s stomach dropped.
Celestine leaned forward despite the pain.
“Ask Maren why she met with your grandfather two months before she told you she was pregnant.”
That detail was true.
Maren had met Elias.
She had never told Adrian why.
For one horrible second, doubt returned.
Celestine smiled.
There it was.
The opening she wanted.
“She has always wanted what belongs to us.”
Adrian stared at his sister.
Three years earlier, that sentence would have been enough.
This time he did something different.
He asked a question.
“If Maren planned all of this, why did she spend three years refusing my money?”
Celestine paused.
“Pride.”
“Why didn’t she sue me?”
“She was waiting.”
“Why didn’t she contact Grandfather?”
Another pause.
Adrian stepped closer.
“Why did you switch the DNA sample?”
Celestine looked toward the window.
Adrian finally understood.
Her strategy only worked if he supplied the doubt himself.
He had done that once.
He would not do it again.
“I’m done letting you tell me what other people meant.”
He turned to leave.
Celestine panicked.
“Adrian!”
He stopped.
“If you leave this room,” she said, “Maren will take the company from you.”
Adrian looked over his shoulder.
“No.”
His voice was quiet.
“You already took my daughter from me.”
He walked out.
But Celestine’s claim about Maren meeting Elias was not false.
And when Adrian returned to the estate, he asked Maren the question he should have asked years ago.
“Why did you meet my grandfather before Elodie was born?”
Maren’s expression changed.
May you like
Because that meeting contained another secret.
One Celestine had never understood.
