“She is your weakness.”
“No,” I said. “She is my reason.”
Vivian flicked the lighter near the gasoline-soaked rags. “Then watch your reason turn you into a widow of your own life.”
“Everett isn’t worth prison.”
“My son is worth everything.”
“He let Serena humiliate you too,” I said.
That stopped her.
I saw the opening and pushed.
“You protected his image, and Serena lived in your house like a queen. She gave him sons, or so he thought. She smiled beside you at galas while everyone whispered. And now she’s gone.”
Vivian’s face twisted.
“She is nothing,” she hissed.
“She fooled all of you.”
The flame shook in her hand.
“What did you say?”
“You don’t know?” I asked.
Vivian stepped closer. “Know what?”
I realized then that Nathaniel had been right. The files suggested something stranger than betrayal. Serena’s fertility records did not match Everett’s claims. The boys were not biologically Everett’s either. Anonymous donor embryos. Falsified reports. A fake legacy sold to a man obsessed with bloodline.
I looked at Vivian, and for one wild second, I almost pitied her.
“Serena lied,” I said. “Carter, Mason, and Owen aren’t Everett’s biological sons.”
Vivian’s mouth opened.
“No.”
“She bought donor embryos and forged the reports. Everett’s precious heirs aren’t Sterlings.”
The lighter dropped slightly.
Her entire identity cracked in front of me.
“No,” she whispered. “No, no, no.”
Then her grief became rage.
She lunged.
The wrench struck the metal shelf beside my head. Sparks burst in the dark. I grabbed her wrist. She clawed at my face. We crashed into a stack of chairs and fell hard onto the concrete.
The lighter flew from her hand and landed near the rags.
A small tongue of fire caught.
Vivian laughed and kicked at me. “Then burn! Let it all burn!”
I fought like I had never fought in my life.
Not elegantly.
Not bravely.
Like a mother who had seen red marks on her daughter’s arms.
I slammed my elbow into Vivian’s wrist until she dropped the wrench. I shoved her away and crawled toward the lighter, but the fire had already begun climbing the edge of an old couch.
Sirens wailed outside.
Blue lights flooded the broken windows.
“Grace!” Nathaniel shouted from the entrance.
Police poured into the warehouse. An officer dragged me back as another sprayed the flames with an extinguisher. Vivian tried to stand, slipped, and fell with a horrible cry, clutching her leg.
Even on the ground, she cursed me.
“You ruined us!”
“No,” I said, coughing through smoke. “I survived you.”