Chapter 22 - The Sister Who Sold Her Soul
Grace froze in Nathan’s arms. The sound of that voice—a voice she had grieved for seven long years, a voice she had prayed to hear in her dreams—now sounded like poison dripping into an open wound.
Nathan stood up slowly, walked to the table, and picked up the transmitter. He clicked the button.
“Elena?” Nathan asked.
A soft, aristocratic laugh came over the radio. “Nathan Vance. My brilliant, foolish husband-by-proxy. Did you really think you could play house with my little sister using my child? Did you really think Victoria Sinclair was the only woman who wanted that fifty-billion-dollar dynasty?”
Grace scrambled to her feet, stumbling to the radio. She grabbed the mic with trembling hands. “Elena! Is that really you? Why? Why did you do this to me? I wept for you every night! I raised Lily believing she was my own daughter!”
“Because you were always the soft one, Grace,” Elena’s voice turned ice-cold, devoid of any sisterly warmth. “You were content working as a maid, cleaning up the messes of the rich, dreaming of tiny lakehouses and quiet lives. I wanted the world. The Vance trust agreement states that whoever presents the biological heir along with the Cygnus Genesis codes gains sole control of the global assets. I let you keep her safe from Victoria while she was an infant. You did a marvelous job, little sister. You kept her fed, healthy, and hidden.”
Elena paused, and the sound of champagne pouring could be heard in the background.
“Now, the board is assembled. Victoria is out of the way, thanks to Nathan’s heroics. All I need is my daughter. And by eight o’clock tomorrow morning, a federal task force will surround that hunting cabin. You will hand Lily over to me, Grace. Or Nathan Vance goes down for international trafficking, and you spend the rest of your life in a supermax facility.”
“She is NOT your daughter!” Grace screamed into the mic, her voice raw with an animalistic fury. “You gave her up in a petri dish for five hundred thousand dollars! I bled for her! I starved for her! She knows MY voice! She calls ME Mommy!”
“Courts don't care about bedtime stories, Grace. They care about DNA,” Elena replied smoothly. “I have the blood test. I have the signed contract. And I have three armored platoons tracking your satellite signal right now. See you at dawn, sister.”
The transmission went dead.
Nathan immediately smashed the satellite radio against the edge of the stone hearth, crushing the circuitry beneath his combat boot.
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“She traced the signal,” Nathan said, his tactical instincts firing at maximum speed. “We have less than forty minutes before their perimeter closes around this mountain.”
***
