A glass shattered against marble, but no one moved. Not the billionaires in tailored suits. Not the socialites in diamonds. Not the waiters trained to vanish like shadows.
Because something had just happened that didn’t happen in rooms like this.
Dominic Sterling’s triplets—three-year-old Leo, Noah, and Chloe—had spoken their very first words.
Not babbling. Not a random sound.
A word. Clear enough to slice through the restaurant’s hush like a blade.
And they weren’t looking at Dominic.
They weren’t looking at their expensive nannies, who sat in stiff uniforms, terrified to breathe.
All three of them were pointing their chubby fingers at the trembling waitress on her knees, cleaning up broken glass.
Their voices were crystal clear, a harmonized chorus of pure, undeniable recognition.
“Mom.”
Dominic Sterling went pale.
He had spent six months burying his wife, Vanessa, like a man burying the only soft part of himself. Six months telling himself she was gone and would never return. Six months watching his children stare through people, never speaking, never connecting, as if the world was a muted screen.
Dominic gripped the edge of the mahogany table, his knuckles turning white. The room spun.
“What did you say?” he whispered, his voice barely audible, yet thunderous in the silence.
The waitress froze. She was on her hands and knees, clutching a dustpan. Her hair was pulled back in a messy, practical bun, frayed strands falling over her face. Her uniform was a generic black dress, slightly too large for her slender frame.
She didn’t look up. She was trembling violently.
“I—I’m sorry, sir,” she stammered, her voice raspy. “I’ll clean this up. I’m so clumsy. Please don’t tell the manager.”
“Look at me,” Dominic commanded.
It wasn’t a request. It was the voice of a man who owned half the city’s skyline.
“Sir, please, I just started this shift…”
“LOOK AT ME!” Dominic roared, slamming his hand on the table.
The silverware rattled. The nannies flinched. The triplets, however, didn’t cry. They just kept pointing. Leo, the boldest, was trying to climb out of his high chair, his little arms reaching desperately toward the woman on the floor.
“Mom! Mama!” Leo cried out, the desperation in his voice tearing Dominic’s heart in two.
Slowly, terrifyingly slowly, the waitress lifted her head.
Dominic forgot how to breathe.
He expected a resemblance. He expected a cruel trick of the light. He expected a stranger who merely shared a similar jawline or hair color.
But looking up at him were eyes the color of storm clouds. Her eyes.
The nose was slightly different—maybe a little crooked, as if it had been broken and healed poorly. There was a faint, jagged scar running from her left ear down to her jawline, vivid and pink against her pale skin. She looked thinner, worn down by a life that Vanessa had never known.
But it was her.
It was Vanessa.
The world tilted on its axis. Dominic stood up, his chair crashing backward onto the floor.
“Vanessa?” he choked out.
The waitress blinked, confusion swimming in those grey eyes. She recoiled, scrambling backward on the floor like a frightened animal.
“I… I don’t know who that is,” she whispered, terrified. “My name is Sarah. Please, sir, you’re scaring me.”
Chapter 2: The Chase
The manager of Ljarda, a sweating man named Mr. Henderson, materialized out of thin air.
“Mr. Sterling, I am so incredibly sorry,” Henderson sputtered, wringing his hands. “This girl is new—temp agency—she’s clumsy, she’s… Sarah! Get up! Get to the kitchen immediately!”
“Don’t you touch her,” Dominic snarled.
Henderson froze, his hand inches from the waitress’s arm.
Dominic rounded the table. He didn’t care about the onlookers. He didn’t care about the paparazzi who were surely lurking outside. He cared only about the woman who was currently trying to make herself disappear into the marble floor.
He reached down and grabbed her wrist.
Her skin was warm. Real.
“Let go of me!” she cried, panic spiking in her voice. She yanked her arm back with surprising strength.
“Vanessa, stop this,” Dominic pleaded, his composure shattering. “Stop the game. The kids… look at the kids. They know you. They haven’t spoken a word since the accident, and now…”
“I don’t know you!” she screamed. She scrambled to her feet, dropping the dustpan full of glass shards. “I’m not Vanessa! I’m Sarah! Leave me alone!”
She turned and bolted.
She didn’t run like a socialite. She ran like someone used to fleeing danger. She darted through the tables, dodging waiters, and burst through the swinging kitchen doors.
“Watch them,” Dominic barked at the head nanny, pointing to the triplets who were now wailing, their arms still reaching for the door where their mother had vanished.
Dominic sprinted after her.
The kitchen was a chaotic maze of steam and shouting chefs. Dominic shoved past a sous-chef holding a tray of oysters.
“Where did she go?” he demanded.
“The back exit!” someone shouted, pointing toward the alley.
Dominic burst out into the cool night air. The alley was dark, smelling of rain and refuse. He looked left, then right.
He saw her. She was halfway down the block, running toward the subway entrance.
“Vanessa!” he shouted.
She didn’t stop. She ran faster.
Dominic wasn’t a runner. He was a boardroom brawler. But adrenaline is a powerful fuel. He caught up to her just as she was swiping a metro card at the turnstile. He vaulted over the barrier, ignoring the station agent’s protest, and grabbed her shoulder.
She spun around, wild-eyed.
“Get away from me!” she yelled, backing up toward the platform edge. The rumble of an approaching train vibrated beneath their feet.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Dominic said, raising his hands. “I just want to look at you. Please. Just… tell me the truth. Is it amnesia? Is it… are you in trouble? Did someone take you?”
“You’re crazy!” she panted, clutching her chest. “I’ve never seen you before in my life! I’m a waitress from Queens! I have rent to pay and you’re going to get me fired!”
The train screeched into the station, a blur of silver and light.
“You have a scar,” Dominic said, pointing to her jaw. “Where did you get that?”
Her hand flew to the scar, covering it self-consciously. “Car accident,” she snapped. “Six months ago. Not that it’s your business.”
Dominic felt like he had been punched in the gut.
“A car accident,” he repeated softly. “Six months ago.”
“Yes! Now let me go!”
The doors opened. A flood of commuters poured out. Sarah used the distraction to shove Dominic hard in the chest. He stumbled back, colliding with a businessman. By the time he regained his balance, she had slipped into the car.
The doors chimed.
“Wait!” Dominic lunged forward.
The doors slid shut right in his face. Through the dirty glass, he saw her. She was slumped against the pole, her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide with fear… and something else. Recognition? No. Confusion.
The train pulled away, taking the ghost of his dead wife with it.
Chapter 3: The Ghost File
Dominic didn’t sleep that night.
He sat in his study, a glass of untouched scotch on the desk. On the wall opposite him was a massive portrait of Vanessa. She was smiling, wearing the emerald gown she’d worn to the Met Gala. She looked radiant, polished, perfect.
He closed his eyes and saw the waitress. The messy hair. The cheap uniform. The fear.
And the scar.
The police report from six months ago lay open on his desk.
Victim: Vanessa Sterling. Cause of Death: vehicular manslaughter/fire. The vehicle went off the bridge into the Hudson. The body was… unrecoverable.
They had buried an empty casket. They had buried a presumption.
“Daddy?”
A tiny voice broke the silence.
Dominic turned. Standing in the doorway of the massive study was Leo. He was clutching a teddy bear.
Usually, the nannies handled the night wakings. Dominic found it too painful. Looking at them was like looking at three miniature versions of her.
“Leo,” Dominic said, his voice cracking. “What are you doing up, buddy?”
Leo walked into the room. He didn’t waddle anymore; he walked with a purpose. He walked right up to Dominic’s leather chair and placed a hand on Dominic’s knee.
“Mama,” Leo said.
It wasn’t a question. It was a statement.
“You saw her too, didn’t you?” Dominic whispered, lifting his son onto his lap.
Leo nodded solemnity. “Mama sad. Mama… boo-boo.” He touched his own jaw, mimicking the scar the waitress had.
Dominic froze. The triplets had noticed the scar? From that distance?
“Yes,” Dominic said, a cold resolve settling over him. “Mama has a boo-boo. But we’re going to fix it.”
He reached for his phone and dialed a number he only used for problems that money couldn’t solve legally.
“This is Sterling,” he said into the receiver. “I need a full background check. Name is Sarah. Works—or worked—at Ljarda. I want to know where she lives, who she lives with, and exactly where she was six months ago. Wake up whoever you have to. I want answers by sunrise.”
Chapter 4: The Hovel
The address the private investigator found was in a crumbling tenement building in the shadow of the Queensboro Bridge.
It was a far cry from the Sterling Penthouse.
Dominic parked his black SUV a block away. He was dressed in jeans and a dark coat, trying to look inconspicuous, which was impossible for a man who carried himself like a king.
He walked up the graffiti-stained stairs to apartment 4B. He could hear a baby crying in the neighboring unit. The smell of boiled cabbage and stale cigarettes hung in the air.
He knocked.
No answer.
He knocked again, harder. “Sarah. I know you’re in there.”
Silence. Then, the sound of a chain sliding. The door cracked open two inches. One grey eye peered out.
“Go away,” she hissed. “I’m calling the police.”
“I brought the police,” Dominic lied smoothly. “Or rather, I can bring them. Or I can bring a check for five million dollars. I just want to talk.”
The eye widened. “Five million?”
“Open the door, Sarah.”
She hesitated, then slowly undid the chain.
The apartment was a shoebox. A mattress on the floor, a hot plate, a single window looking out at a brick wall. But it was clean. Painfully clean.
Sarah stood in the center of the room, wearing oversized sweatpants and a t-shirt. She looked exhausted.
“Who are you?” she asked, her arms crossed defensively. “Why are you stalking me?”
“My name is Dominic Sterling,” he said, watching her face for a reaction.
Nothing. No spark of recognition at the name. That was impossible. Everyone knew the name Sterling.
“I don’t watch the news,” she muttered, seeing his look. “I work double shifts. I sleep. That’s it.”
Dominic stepped closer. “Six months ago, my wife, Vanessa, died in a car accident. Her car went off a bridge. Her body was never found.”
Sarah backed up until she hit the wall. “That’s tragic. Really. But what does it have to do with me?”
Dominic reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a photograph. It was a candid shot of Vanessa laughing at a picnic.
He held it up next to Sarah’s face.
Sarah looked at the photo. Her breath hitched. She looked from the photo to a small, cracked mirror on the wall, then back to the photo.
The resemblance wasn’t just close. It was a photocopy.
“I…” Sarah touched the photo. “Who is she?”
“That’s you,” Dominic said intensely. “Or, it’s who you were.”
“No,” Sarah shook her head violently. “No. Look, mister. I woke up in a hospital in Jersey six months ago. I had no ID. No name. Just this scar and a concussion. The doctors called me Jane Doe. I picked the name Sarah because it sounded… safe.”
Dominic’s heart hammered against his ribs. Retrograde Amnesia. It was the golden ticket. It explained everything.
“You don’t remember anything before the hospital?”
“Flashes,” she whispered, looking down. “Fire. Screaming. Cold water. That’s it.”
“The water,” Dominic stepped closer, invading her space. “Vanessa went into the river. You survived. You washed up.”
“But I’m poor!” Sarah shouted, pushing him back. “I felt it! When I woke up, I knew how to wait tables. I knew how to clean floors. I didn’t know how to… to be rich. Look at my hands!”
She held them up. They were calloused, rough.
“Vanessa had manicures,” Dominic admitted. “But muscle memory is a strange thing. Maybe you waited tables in college? Maybe—”
“I need you to leave,” Sarah said, her voice trembling. “You’re confusing me. My head hurts.”
“I have three children,” Dominic said softy. “Triplets. They are three years old. Since their mother died, they haven’t spoken a single word. Not one. Until last night.”
Sarah stopped pushing. She looked up at him. “The little boy… with the blue sweater?”
“Leo,” Dominic nodded. “He pointed at you. They all did. They called you ‘Mom’. Children don’t lie, Sarah. They know.”
Sarah slumped down onto the mattress, putting her head in her hands. “I can’t be her. I just can’t. If I was rich… if I had babies… why didn’t I come home? Why didn’t I remember them?”
“Trauma,” Dominic said. He crouched down in front of her. “Come home with me.”
“What?”
“Come to the manor. Just for a few days. I’ll pay you. Whatever you want. Just… be around the kids. If you’re not her, they’ll realize it. If you’re not her, I’ll give you enough money to start a new life anywhere you want. But if you are her…”
He let the sentence hang.
Sarah looked around her squalid apartment. She looked at the man who smelled like rain and expensive leather, who looked at her with a mix of grief and desperate hope.
“I’m afraid,” she whispered.
“So am I,” Dominic admitted. “But I need to know.”
Chapter 5: The Stranger in the House
The Sterling Estate was a fortress of limestone and glass on the outskirts of the city.
When the gates opened, Sarah pressed her face against the tinted window of the SUV. “This is… a hotel?”
“It’s home,” Dominic said.
As they pulled up to the main entrance, the staff was lined up. Dominic had called ahead.
Mrs. Higgins, the housekeeper who had raised Dominic and helped raise the triplets, stood at the front. When Sarah stepped out of the car, Mrs. Higgins gasped. She covered her mouth with a handkerchief, crossing herself.
“Lord have mercy,” the old woman wept. “It’s a ghost.”
“It’s Sarah,” Dominic corrected firmly, guiding Sarah by the elbow. “She is our guest.”
Inside, the house was overwhelming. High ceilings, art that cost more than Sarah’s lifetime earnings, silence that felt heavy.
“Where are they?” Sarah asked quietly.
“In the nursery,” Dominic said. “Upstairs.”
They walked up the grand staircase. Sarah’s hand trailed along the banister.
“I know this wood,” she murmured.
Dominic stopped. “What?”
“Smooth,” she said, blinking as if waking from a trance. “I remember… sliding down it? No, that’s silly.”
Dominic’s heart leaped. Vanessa used to slide down the banister when she was tipsy on champagne. It was their secret joke.
“It’s not silly,” he said thickly.
They reached the nursery door. It was painted a soft cream color.
Dominic opened it.
The triplets were playing on the floor with blocks. It was a quiet, somber play. No giggling. No shouting.
Then, they heard the door.
Three heads turned.
Chloe dropped her block. Noah stood up. Leo’s eyes went wide.
Sarah stood in the doorway, paralyzed. She looked at the children, and a sudden, sharp pain shot through her temples. A flash of memory—warmth, small weights in her arms, the smell of baby powder and lavender.
She swayed.
“Mama!” Chloe shrieked.
It was like a dam broke. The three toddlers scrambled across the fluffy rug. They didn’t run to Dominic. They ran to the stranger in the sweatpants.
They collided with her legs, wrapping their little arms around her knees, burying their faces in her fabric.
“Mama back! Mama back!” Noah chanted, sobbing.
Sarah didn’t know what to do. She looked at Dominic, panic in her eyes. “I don’t… I don’t know them!”
“Just hold them,” Dominic choked out. “Please.”
Sarah sank to her knees. Immediately, she was swarmed. Tiny hands touched her face, her hair, her scar.
“Boo-boo,” Leo whispered, kissing her jaw.
And then, something happened.
Sarah’s body took over. She didn’t think; she just reacted. She pulled them close, smelling their hair. She rocked back and forth. A melody rose in her throat—a humming sound, low and rhythmic.
Hmm-hmm-hmm, sleep little star…
Dominic leaned against the doorframe, tears streaming down his face.
It was the lullaby Vanessa had written for them. The one she had never written down. The one only she knew.
Sarah stopped humming abruptly. She looked up at Dominic, her eyes wide with terror.
“How did I know that song?” she whispered.
Dominic walked over and knelt beside them, encircling the whole group in his arms.
“Because you’re their mother,” he said. “Welcome home, Vanessa.”
Chapter 6: The Imposter Syndrome
Three days passed.
The DNA test results were sitting in a sealed envelope on Dominic’s desk. He hadn’t opened them. He didn’t feel the need to. The lullaby was enough.
But for Sarah, it wasn’t.
She was living in the guest wing. She refused to sleep in the master bedroom. She said it felt like sleeping in a museum dedicated to a dead woman.
She spent her days with the children. They were blossoming. They laughed. They spoke in full sentences. They were happy.
But Sarah was drowning.
She sat in the kitchen, drinking coffee with Mrs. Higgins.
“I feel like a fraud,” Sarah confessed. “I look at these expensive clothes he bought me, and I feel like I’m playing dress-up. I don’t remember being her. I remember being hungry. I remember working at a diner in Jersey. I remember the pain of the accident. But I don’t remember… loving him.”
Mrs. Higgins patted her hand. “The heart is a muscle, dear. It can atrophy. Give it time.”
“But what if I’m not her?” Sarah asked, her voice trembling. “What if I’m just a freakish look-alike who absorbed some memories because of… I don’t know, a psychic connection? What if the real Vanessa is still out there?”
“You hummed the song,” Mrs. Higgins said simply.
“Maybe I heard it once!”
“No one heard it but the family.”
Sarah stood up, pacing. “I need to see the spot.”
“What spot?”
“The bridge,” Sarah said. “Where she died. Where I… supposedly died. I need to go there.”
Chapter 7: The Bridge
Dominic drove her.
It was a grey, blustery day. The bridge spanned the Hudson River, steel and concrete rising high above the churning water.
Dominic pulled the car over to the emergency lane near the section of the guardrail that had been replaced—the new metal shiny against the old rust.
“This is it,” Dominic said, staring at the water. “The police said you lost control on the ice. You went right through.”
Sarah got out of the car. The wind whipped her hair across her face. She walked to the edge and looked down.
The height was dizzying.
Flash.
Screeching tires. A blinding light in the rearview mirror. Not ice. A black SUV ramming her. The sensation of falling. The cold.
Sarah gasped, gripping the rail. “It wasn’t an accident.”
Dominic came to her side immediately. “What?”
“I remember,” Sarah said, her eyes losing focus. “I didn’t slip. Someone hit me. Someone pushed me off.”
Dominic went rigid. “Who? Did you see them?”
“No,” Sarah shook her head, clutching her temples. “Just lights. And… a sound. A specific horn. Like a melody.”
She turned to Dominic. “Someone tried to kill me, Dominic. And if I remember that… they might know I’m alive.”
As if on cue, a black sedan slowed down in the lane next to them. The window rolled down.
Dominic instinctively stepped in front of Sarah.
But it was just a curious driver. The car sped away.
“We need to go,” Dominic said, his protective instincts flaring. “If someone tried to kill Vanessa Sterling, and they find out Sarah Miller is living in her house… you’re in danger.”
He grabbed her hand to lead her back to the car.
But Sarah didn’t move. She was staring at something stuck in the crevices of the old guardrail, near the ground.
“What is that?”
She knelt down. Caught in a rusted bolt, crusted with six months of grime, was a small, silver charm.
She pried it loose. It was a letter ‘V’.
“My bracelet,” Dominic whispered, recognizing it. “I gave you that for our first anniversary.”
Sarah held the cold metal in her palm. It vibrated with a history she couldn’t fully touch, yet felt intimately.
“I’m her,” she said, looking at Dominic. The doubt was gone, replaced by a cold, hard realization. “I am Vanessa. And someone tried to murder me.”
Dominic’s expression shifted from grief to a dark, terrifying rage.
“Then we are going to find them,” he vowed. “And I will burn the world down to make them pay.”
Chapter 8: The Golden Cage
The DNA results sat on the mahogany desk in Dominic’s study, the seal broken.
“99.999% match,” Dominic read aloud, his voice devoid of triumph, heavy with a dark realization. “You are Vanessa Sterling.”
Sarah—no, Vanessa—sat in the leather armchair across from him. She was hugging a throw pillow to her chest, her knees pulled up. She didn’t look like a billionaire’s wife. She looked like a refugee in a palace.
“I don’t feel like her,” she whispered. “I feel like an intruder wearing her face.”
“You’re not an intruder,” Dominic said, walking around the desk to kneel beside her. “But you are in danger. If someone tried to kill you six months ago, and they find out you survived… they will try again.”
He took her hand. Her palm was rough, calloused from months of scrubbing diner tables. He ran his thumb over the hardened skin.
“I’ve tripled the security,” Dominic continued. “No one comes in or out without my approval. You are safe here.”
“I’m a prisoner,” she corrected, though not unkindly.
“For now,” Dominic admitted. “Until we find out who did this.”
He stood up and walked to the wall safe, punching in a code. He pulled out a black velvet box. Inside was a wedding ring—a massive, emerald-cut diamond that caught the light.
“You weren’t wearing this when you… when you went into the water,” Dominic said. “The police gave it to me. They found it in the glove box of your car.”
Vanessa stared at the ring. A flash of memory hit her—taking the ring off. Anger. Tears. Shouting.
“We were fighting,” she said suddenly.
Dominic froze. “What?”
“Before the accident,” Vanessa said, her grey eyes unfocused. “I took the ring off because I was angry. I was driving away from… from here.”
Dominic looked stricken. “Yes. You were. We argued about my work. About me never being home. You said you needed space. You drove to your sister’s house in upstate. You never made it.”
“I was leaving you,” she whispered, the guilt of a past life crushing her.
“And now you’re back,” Dominic said fiercely, closing the box. “And I am not making the same mistakes. I will burn down the world to keep you safe, Vanessa. But first, we have to flush out the rat.”
Chapter 9: The War Room
Dominic assembled his “War Room” in the library. It consisted of his head of security, Marcus (an ex-Mossad agent), his private investigator, and surprisingly, Vanessa herself.
“I want to help,” she insisted. “I may not remember my life, but I remember the attack. I remember the horn.”
Marcus pulled up a holographic map of the bridge on the table.
“The police report said you lost control on black ice,” Marcus explained. “But if you were rammed, there would be paint transfer. The car is at the bottom of the Hudson, heavily corroded. However…”
Marcus clicked a button. Grainy footage from a traffic camera miles before the bridge appeared.
“This is your car, Mrs. Sterling. The silver Porsche.”
“And that,” Vanessa pointed a trembling finger, “is the SUV.”
Trailing behind the Porsche was a black, nondescript SUV. It had tinted windows and no front license plate.
“I remember the horn,” Vanessa said, closing her eyes. “It wasn’t a normal beep. It was musical. Like… La Cucaracha? No, something classical. Ride of the Valkyries.”
Dominic looked at Marcus. “Who installs a custom musical horn on a hit-man vehicle?”
“Someone arrogant,” Dominic muttered. “Someone who thought it was funny.”
He paced the room. “We need to draw them out. If they think Vanessa is dead, they’re comfortable. We need to make them uncomfortable.”
“How?” Marcus asked.
Dominic looked at Vanessa. “By bringing the dead back to life.”
Chapter 10: The Transformation
The plan was insane. It was dangerous. And it was their only shot.
The Sterling Foundation Gala was in three days. It was the biggest social event of the season. Every rival, every partner, every potential enemy would be there.
“You want me to walk into a ballroom of five hundred people and pretend I remember them?” Vanessa asked, horrified.
“You don’t have to remember them,” Dominic said. “You just have to look at them. The killer will reveal themselves. Panic is hard to hide.”
But first, Sarah had to disappear, and Vanessa had to return.
Dominic hired a team—stylists, posture coaches, makeup artists—but he swore them to secrecy with NDAs that carried prison sentences.
For three days, Vanessa underwent a grueling boot camp.
“Chin up, Mrs. Sterling,” the posture coach tapped her spine. “You walk like a waitress carrying a heavy tray. You need to walk like you own the floor.”
“I am a waitress,” Vanessa snapped, rubbing her aching neck.
“Not anymore,” Dominic said from the doorway. He was holding the triplets. Leo, Noah, and Chloe were the only things that kept her sane. They sat on the floor, clapping every time she tried on a new dress.
“Pretty Mama!” Noah cheered.
Vanessa looked in the mirror. The woman staring back was terrifyingly beautiful. The scar on her jaw had been artfully concealed with makeup, though Dominic had offered to hire a plastic surgeon to remove it later.
“Leave it,” Vanessa had said. “It reminds me that I survived.”
She wore a gown of midnight blue silk that hugged her curves—curves that were leaner now, stronger. She didn’t look like the soft socialite she used to be. She looked like a weapon sheathed in velvet.
Chapter 11: The Walk
The night of the Gala, the Grand Ballroom of the Sterling Hotel was a sea of diamonds and champagne.
Rumors had been leaked to the press that Dominic Sterling would be making a “historic announcement.” The media assumed it was a merger.
Dominic stood at the top of the grand staircase. He checked his earpiece.
“Security is tight,” Marcus’s voice crackled. “Snipers on the balcony. Undercover agents at every exit. If anyone makes a move, we take them down.”
Dominic took a deep breath. He turned to the woman standing in the shadows of the hallway.
“Ready?” he asked.
Vanessa was shaking. Her hands were cold. “I can’t do this, Dom. I don’t know who to trust. What if I faint?”
“Then I catch you,” he said simply. He offered his arm. “Trust me.”
She took his arm.
The music stopped. The chatter died down as the spotlight hit the top of the stairs.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the announcer boomed. “Mr. Dominic Sterling… and Mrs. Vanessa Sterling.”
The silence that followed was absolute. It wasn’t polite; it was shocked. Forks dropped. Mouths hung open.
Vanessa stepped into the light.
She didn’t smile. She didn’t wave. She scanned the crowd with cold, grey eyes, looking for the monster who had tried to drown her.
They descended the stairs. Every step was a declaration of war.
As they reached the floor, the whispers exploded. “Impossible.” “She’s dead.” “Is it a clone?”
A man pushed through the crowd. He was tall, with slicked-back hair and a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
Julian Thorne. Dominic’s CFO and oldest friend.
“Vanessa?” Julian’s face was a mask of pure, unadulterated shock. His glass of scotch tilted dangerously in his hand. “My God. We… we buried you.”
Dominic felt Vanessa’s hand spasm on his arm.
“Hello, Julian,” she said. Her voice was steady, but her pulse was racing.
“How?” Julian stammered, looking at Dominic. “Dom, you didn’t tell me… you didn’t tell anyone!”
“We wanted it to be a surprise,” Dominic said, his eyes drilling into Julian. “Vanessa has had a long recovery. But she remembers everything. Don’t you, darling?”
It was a lie. A bait.
Vanessa looked at Julian. She studied his face. Did she know him? There was a familiarity there, but it was clouded.
“I remember,” she lied smoothly. “I remember everything about that night.”
Julian’s Adam’s apple bobbed. He took a sip of his drink, his hand trembling slightly. “That’s… wonderful. Truly. To have you back.”
He looked like he was going to be sick.
Chapter 12: The Melody
The night was a blur of handshakes and fake smiles. Vanessa played her part perfectly, sticking to safe topics, letting Dominic steer the conversations.
But she kept watching Julian.
He was pacing near the bar. He was texting furiously.
“He’s rattling,” Dominic whispered in her ear while they danced. “Look at him.”
“Is he the one?” Vanessa asked.
“He’s the one who benefits,” Dominic said. “If you died, and I was too grief-stricken to run the company, the board would have appointed him interim CEO. He stood to gain billions.”
Suddenly, Julian moved. He headed toward the terrace doors.
“I’m going after him,” Dominic said. “Stay here with Marcus.”
“No,” Vanessa said. “He knows you. He won’t talk to you. He’ll talk to me. He thinks I’m the weak link.”
“It’s too dangerous.”
“I climbed out of a sinking car in the Hudson River, Dominic. I can handle a CFO in a tuxedo.”
Before he could stop her, she slipped away, signaling Marcus to follow at a distance.
She followed Julian out onto the terrace. It was empty, the city lights glittering below. Julian was on his phone, his back to her.
“…I don’t care how she’s here, just fix it!” Julian was hissing into the phone. “No, not here. On the drive home. Make it look like a carjacking. I am not losing this company because of a ghost!”
Vanessa stepped on a dry leaf. Crunch.
Julian spun around. He dropped the phone.
“Vanessa,” he breathed, his face twisting into a sneer. “You always were nosy.”
“Who are you talking to, Julian?” she asked, her voice steel.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said, taking a step toward her. “You should be dead. Do you know how much trouble you caused? Surviving?”
“Why?” she asked. “We were friends. I remember… I remember you coming to Christmas dinner.”
“Friends?” Julian laughed, a bitter, ugly sound. “Dom treated me like a glorified accountant! I built this company with him! And when you came along, you tried to make him ‘slow down.’ You tried to make him retire. I couldn’t let you ruin my empire.”
He reached into his jacket.
Vanessa didn’t scream. She didn’t run.
Waitress instinct took over. Sarah from Queens took over.
As Julian pulled out a small, silenced pistol, Vanessa grabbed a heavy crystal ashtray from the patio table.
“Goodbye, Vanessa,” Julian said.
Honk. Honk. Honk-honk-honk.
A car horn blared from the street below—some random traffic noise. But the rhythm.
Ride of the Valkyries.
It triggered something violent in Vanessa’s brain. The memory unlocked fully.
The bridge. The lights. Julian’s face in the passenger seat of the SUV. He was there. He watched her fall.
“It was you!” she screamed.
Julian raised the gun.
Vanessa didn’t wait. She hurled the crystal ashtray with all the strength of a woman who had carried trays of heavy dishes for six months.
It struck Julian square in the forehead.
The gun fired—pfft—the bullet shattering the glass door next to her ear.
Julian crumbled to the ground, blood pouring from his head.
Dominic burst through the shattered doors, gun drawn, Marcus right behind him.
They found Vanessa standing over Julian’s unconscious body, her chest heaving, the heavy ashtray still in her hand.
Dominic rushed to her, checking her for bullet holes. “Did he hit you? Are you okay?”
Vanessa looked down at the man who had stolen six months of her life. She looked at her trembling hands—waitress hands, mother hands, killer hands.
“I remember,” she whispered to Dominic. “I remember everything.”
Chapter 13: The Loose End
Julian was in a coma under police guard at the hospital. The scandal was the talk of the world. The attempted murder of Vanessa Sterling by the company CFO.
Back at the manor, the atmosphere was lighter. The threat was neutralized.
Or so they thought.
Vanessa sat in the nursery, watching the triplets sleep. Dominic stood in the doorway, watching her.
“You saved yourself,” Dominic said with admiration. “I thought I needed to be the hero. Turned out you didn’t need one.”
“I needed a partner,” Vanessa said, standing up and walking to him. She placed a hand on his chest. “I remember us, Dom. I remember why I left that night. I felt… alone. But I don’t feel alone now.”
Dominic kissed her forehead. “You never will be again.”
His phone buzzed. It was Marcus.
Dominic frowned. “It’s late. What is it, Marcus?”
He listened. His face went pale.
“What?” Vanessa asked, sensing the shift.
“Julian,” Dominic said, lowering the phone. “He didn’t wake up. But the police analyzed his phone. The call he made on the terrace… he wasn’t calling a hitman.”
“Who was he calling?”
“He was calling a number registered to a burner phone,” Dominic said. “But the voice analysis… Marcus says the person on the other end gave the order.”
“Gave the order?” Vanessa chilled. “I thought Julian was the boss.”
“No,” Dominic looked at the dark window, at the vast estate grounds. “Julian said, ‘I’m not losing this company.’ But he didn’t own the company. He just managed the money.”
“Dominic, who was he talking to?”
Dominic looked at her, his eyes full of a new, terrifying realization.
“He was talking to the only other person who stood to inherit the Sterling fortune if we both died. The person who has been living in the guest house for twenty years.”
Vanessa gasped. “Your stepmother? Elena?”
“We have to go,” Dominic said, grabbing her hand. “She has keys to the nursery.”
Just then, the lights in the manor went out.
The electronic locks clicked open.
And from the darkness of the hallway, a new sound emerged. Not a horn. But the soft, rhythmic clicking of high heels on marble, coming toward the triplets’ room.
