She looked at me. And for the first time, I didn’t see my queen sister. I saw a woman terrified of being saved by the person she despised.
“He told me you were a match for me. That you saved me. That that’s why I had to act like I loved you, because we owed you our lives.”
That hurt. Not because she hated me. Because her affection, the few times it existed, had also been a transaction.
“And yet you signed the loan,” I said.
Danielle lowered her gaze. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Content package deal. Because I was drowning. Because my husband left. Because the house is foreclosed. Because Dad said you had too much and wouldn’t even notice.”
I let out a cold laugh. “Of course. You can extract adult pieces from the spare daughter, too.”
My mom started to cry. “Don’t talk like that.”
I looked at her. “How do you want me to talk? With gratitude for using me as a blood bank and then as a regular bank?”
“I cared for you!”
“You hid me.”
“I gave you a family!”
“You gave me a seat at the end of the table.”
My dad set down his glass. “Enough. I won’t allow you to come here and judge us. Thanks to us, you are who you are.”
Something exploded right then. I didn’t scream. I didn’t need to.
“No, Arthur. Thanks to you, I learned not to need love to survive. Everything else, I did myself.”
His face shifted when he heard his name. Not Dad. Arthur. The word stripped him of his throne.
“You don’t know anything,” he said.
“Then tell me. Where did I come from?”
My mom sobbed. My dad went quiet.
Thomas pulled out a sheet of paper. “St. Raphael Clinic closed in 2001. But we found a preliminary archive. There were records of irregular adoptions and unauthorized pediatric procedures.”
My mom put her hands over her mouth. I stopped breathing.
Thomas looked at me carefully. “Valerie, we found a name linked to your original file.”
“Say it.”
“Marisol Rivers.”
My legal mom’s maiden name was Rivers. But my mother’s name wasn’t Marisol. Her name was Eleanor.
“Who is Marisol?” I asked.
My dad turned pale. My mom whispered, “No.”
Danielle raised her face. “Who?”
I looked at Arthur. “Answer me.”
He picked up his glass, but his hand shook violently. “A young woman who couldn’t raise you.”
“Did you buy her baby?”
“We saved you.”
My mom sank into her seat. “It wasn’t like that.”
“Then how was it?”
No one answered.
Until a voice came from the entrance. “They swapped you.”
We all turned. Matthew was standing at the door, drenched from the rain, holding a red folder in his hands.
My dad roared, “What are you doing here?”
Matthew didn’t look at him. He looked at me. “I went to the construction company’s old warehouse. The one Dad used to use. I found this in a box with documents from the clinic.”
He walked over and handed me the folder. My dad tried to stop him, but one of my bodyguards stepped in the way.
I opened the folder. There were photos. Two babies. A hospital wristband with my current name. Another with a different name. Marisol Rivers appeared on a file as the biological mother of a baby girl: Valerie Rivers.
And beneath it, on another page, there was a handwritten note: “Baby not a match. Substitution authorized by A.M. Payment received.”
A.M. Arthur Miller.
My blood turned to ice. I turned another page. There was another file. Female infant. No name. Mother: Anna Lucy Vance. Status: deceased during childbirth. Observation: match for minor Danielle Miller.