I sat frozen at the kitchen table, Harriet’s words echoing in the silence of the penthouse. Twenty-six years ago. The photograph of the little girl—me—still lay beside my cold tea. I did the math again and again, my mind refusing to accept it. Twenty-six years. That document had been signed before I was born. Before my parents’ marriage. Before Dominic. Before any of this nightmare had a name.
Why would anyone draft a legal document about a child who didn’t yet exist? Who had that kind of power? And why me? The questions crashed over me like waves, each one pulling me deeper into an ocean I couldn’t see the bottom of. The plan hadn’t started with my father’s desperation or Dominic’s ambition. It had started with my very existence—perhaps even before it.
By sunrise, I was already driving
