They Stole My Daughter’s Future—So I Took Them All Down

Chapter 3

Eighteen years ago, Daniel had been a poor business-school student who survived on scholarships.

I hid the fact that I was the heiress to my family fortune and shared a leaky Crestmont apartment with him.

On snowy days, he would walk six blocks to buy me hot soup. He once spread his only clean coat across a laboratory bench so that I could sleep more comfortably while pregnant.

After Northstar was founded, I handled research and he ran the business.

Later, I handed interviews, board presentations, and overseas contracts over to Daniel. The media remembered only his name.

Eventually, no one even bothered asking who had rented the company's first laboratory.

And now he stood before me.

Daniel noticed Victoria's fury first, then Olivia's swollen, bloodied nose. His own daughter, lying on a stretcher with an oxygen mask over her face, came last.

"Dad." Lily gripped the edge of the stretcher. "Why did you give her my application?"

His fingers curled, then loosened.

Every phone in the room pointed at him. They were all waiting for Northstar's billionaire CEO to expose us as frauds.

Victoria clutched his arm more tightly. "Tell them we're your real family."

"Daniel," I said, "look at Lily and say it again."

He did not look.

"Ma'am, I don't know you."

How laughable. This was what our eighteen-year marriage had come to.

Lily's hand stopped in midair as she reached for him. Two seconds later, she slowly drew it back beneath the emergency blanket, her fingertips curling around the torn passport photo.

"Say that again." Her voice was almost inaudible through the oxygen mask.

Daniel straightened his cuff without looking at her.

Victoria pressed even closer against him.

I could smell his familiar cedar cologne. Yesterday morning, he had texted to ask when my flight landed. Before I left Norhaven, he had even said he had replaced the flowers in our bedroom.

Lily kept staring at him, as though waiting for him to laugh and admit this was nothing more than a cruel joke.

But instead, Daniel turned toward the livestream cameras and put on that composed expression he always wore at board meetings.

"I said I didn't know her because I didn't want to air her dirty laundry in public," he said. "Mara used to work at Northstar, but she was fired for violating confidentiality. She has hated me ever since and even coached her daughter to pose as a member of my family."

He pointed at the card in Victoria's hand.

"I entrusted that access card to Victoria. She represents me on Project Helios Shield. She didn't steal anything."

By the end, he even sounded convinced of his own lies.

People around us began whispering, and several cameras swung away from him and back toward me.

Lily struggled to raise her head from the stretcher. "Dad, you know who Mom is..."

"Don't call me Dad," Daniel said.

The last of Lily's strength seemed to drain away. She collapsed back against the pillow.

Olivia followed the stretcher with her phone held high, demanding that Lily bark like a dog for the livestream. While a paramedic blocked her camera, Victoria shoved a statement into my hand.

"Sign this. Admit that you pretended to be members of the Northstar family and stole the work in Olivia's application. Otherwise, Lily will be expelled." She lowered her voice. "Daniel knows a lot of prosecutors."

Daniel stared at me. "Sign it. For the sake of the time we used to work together, I'll let this go."

"The time we used to work together?"

"Mara, stop making a scene. You can't beat me."

I placed the broken silver chain on top of the statement.

"I can't beat you? Let's find out." I looked him in the eye. "You stole my company and my identity, then helped her steal Lily's place. I'm going to make you answer for every last bit of it. And remember this, what you did to my daughter will cost you most of all!"

I pressed the emergency button on my watch, transmitting my location and the audio recording from the scene.

The composure on Daniel's face finally cracked.

"Take her watch!" he shouted at the guards.

Neither guard moved. The corridor was full of cameras, and no one wanted to be the first to lunge at me.

"Useless, all of you!"

Daniel shoved through the people beside him and tore a fire extinguisher from its wall bracket. He raised the canister with both hands and swung it straight at my head.

I dodged backward. The extinguisher grazed my shoulder and smashed through the glass display case behind me. Shards flew past my ear, and my right arm went numb on impact.

Screams erupted all around us.

He had no intention of stopping. The second blow was aimed at my temple.

The shattered display case was directly behind me. I had nowhere left to retreat. The heavy red canister filled my vision. If it connected, it would kill me or leave me gravely injured.

At that moment, a black-gloved hand caught the extinguisher from the side.

Daniel yanked it back with all his strength, but the canister did not move an inch.

Four men in dark suits had entered the corridor. Two shielded Lily's stretcher and me. Another wrenched Daniel's arm behind his back and drove him to the floor.

Their leader stepped in front of me. His gaze flicked from the project card in Victoria's hand to the phones broadcasting all around us.

Finally, he looked at Daniel.

"Did you just say she couldn't beat you?"

Daniel's face turned deathly pale. "Who are you?"

The man displayed his credentials, then turned toward every camera.

"Now I'll tell you exactly who she is."