Chapter 28 - The Puppet Master’s Sister
Vanessa’s face was bruised and bandaged where Daniel had beaten her in the seaside cottage, but her eyes burned with the same maniacal, psychopathic light. In her hand, she held the detonator for the grenades on the stairs—which was now useless.
She stared at Daniel, then at Noah and Maya, and let out a shrill, hysterical laugh that was snatched away by the gale-force wind.
"You really are a cockroach, Daniel Mercer," Vanessa screamed over the howling storm. "You survive the house, you survive the woods, you survive Julian... what does a girl have to do to put you in the ground?"
Daniel raised his rifle, aiming directly between her eyes. "Drop the weapon, Vanessa. Or I swear to God, I won't just put you down—I’ll throw you into the rocks below."
"Go ahead! Shoot me!" Vanessa sneered, opening her arms wide. "Kill me! It doesn't change anything! Clara isn't coming back for you, Daniel! Clara never loved you!"
"Shut up!" Noah screamed, his voice breaking. "Where is my mom?!"
Vanessa looked down at the boy with genuine pity mixed with cruel amusement. "Oh, sweet boy. Clara is already on the helicopter. She’s five miles off the coast on our father’s yacht. Clara didn't run from the Hawthorne family, Noah. Clara *is* the head of the Hawthorne family!"
Daniel felt the ground tilt beneath his feet. "What are you talking about?"
"Our father died two years ago, Daniel," Vanessa laughed, stepping closer to the broken edge of the lantern room. "He left everything to Clara. But our father’s board of directors had a condition—a morality clause. If Clara abandoned her husband and had children out of wedlock, the trust dissolved. So she married you, Daniel! A safe, boring, loyal private security guard. She had Noah. She had Maya. And the moment the children’s DNA was registered to the trust, you became obsolete!"
"You tried to kill them with the candlestick!" Daniel roared.
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"I tried to kill *her*!" Vanessa shrieked, pointing violently at Maya. "If the children die, the trust reverts to the surviving siblings—to me and Julian! Clara staged the nursery fire to hide them from me! She faked her death to protect her billions, not you! You’ve been fighting my family to protect Clara’s golden tickets!"
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