The photo haunted Helen.
Sebastian, cradling a baby. Not their child. A different child. Younger, wrapped in a blanket stitched with the Whitaker crest.
He already chose. You're just next.
She'd stared at the picture for hours—trying to find signs it was doctored, a hoax, a manipulation from Jennifer. But the way Sebastian looked at the baby… it was tender. Real.
And it shattered something inside her
---
Two days passed.
Sebastian was gone on a last-minute "business emergency"—his voice distant on the phone, layered in guilt. The timing couldn't be worse.
Helen tried to breathe, tried to think. But Jennifer wasn't giving her space.
The whispers had turned into full-on invasions.
Vivian invited her to lunch—and Jennifer "coincidentally" appeared at the table five minutes later, slipping into the booth like she belonged.
"I hope you don't mind," Jennifer purred. "Vivian and I have gotten closer lately. I suppose heartbreak forges new friendships."
Helen tensed. "Vivian and I aren't heartbroken."
Jennifer smiled, cold and knowing. "Aren't you?"
Vivian looked down at her plate.
"Helen," Jennifer said, her voice dipping into mock-sympathy, "I know it's hard to let go of someone who made you feel again. But there's a difference between love and dependency. Especially when that love is built on lies."
Helen's hand curled into a fist. "You're afraid of me loving him, aren't you?"
Jennifer's mask cracked. Just for a moment.
Then: "No. I'm afraid of you becoming him."
She stood and left without another word, her stilettos clicking like a ticking clock
---
Later that evening, a letter arrived. Handwritten. No return address. The envelope sealed with the Whitaker family crest
Eliza.
Sebastian's estranged sister.
Helen's fingers trembled as she opened it.> Helen,You don't know me, but I know you.You're walking into a fire that's already taken so many.
My brother doesn't tell the full truth—not because he's cruel, but because he's afraid. Afraid of what he comes from. Afraid of what he's capable of.
Ask him about Katherine Voss.Ask him about our father's ledger.Ask him why he changed his name.I tried to protect him. Until I couldn't anymore.
You deserve to know what blood runs in your daughter's veins.
I'll be in town. When you're r myeady to see the truth, come to the Whitaker estate. Midnight.
Come alone.
Helen dropped the letter. Her blood ran cold.
That night, Helen sat by her baby's crib, watching her chest rise and fall. The child was everything pure in her world. But doubt began to whisper.
Could Sebastian really have lied about something as deep as identity?
Was the child she carried also carrying a legacy drenched in secrets?
She didn't sleep. She watched the clock tick toward midnight.
Meanwhile...Jennifer wasn't resting.She was hunting.She called Isabella, Anita, and Vivian together in secret—framing it as a "concerned intervention."
"Helen's slipping," she said, pushing a fake psychiatric report across the table. "Paranoia. Depression. Manic distrust. She's not okay."
Anita gasped. "That's not… that can't be real."
Jennifer leaned in. "I have custody filings ready. In case it escalates. You three can help. Speak to the judge. Say you're worried.
Vivian frowned. "What are you trying to do?"
Jennifer dropped the smile. "Protect the child from a dangerous man. And from a mother who's too in love to see she's drowning."
Her voice turned sharp. "Or do you want to wait until it's too late?"
The girls exchanged glances.One by one, they began to fold.Back to Helen…
She drove through winding roads, headlights slicing through the mist as the Whitaker estate loomed like a corpse on a hill. Ivy strangled the iron gates. The windows were all black—except one.
She stepped inside.Eliza Whitaker stood in the foyer, tall, striking, a shadow in human form.
"You came," she said, voice like chilled silk.
"I want the truth," Helen said.
Eliza's eyes flickered toward the staircase. "Then follow me. But know this—truth doesn't cleanse. It infects."
Helen followed her through the halls. Paintings hung crooked. The air smelled like dust and regret.
In a hidden study, Eliza unlocked a drawer and pulled out a leather-bound book. The Whitaker ledger.Inside: names, payments, codewords. A decades-long trail of offshore accounts, bribes, and… entries in Sebastian's handwriting.
Helen's stomach dropped.
"He was a child when it began," Eliza said. "Our father used him to pass messages, sign things. By the time Sebastian understood what he was part of… it was too late. Blood in, no way out."
Helen flipped the page.
Katherine Voss.
A name. A photo. A death certificate.
Cause of death: Overdose
Relationship: Unknown
"No one knows who she really was," Eliza whispered. "But Sebastian blamed himself for her death. He's never spoken her name since."
Helen's heart cracked open.
The man she loved wasn't evil.
He was tormented.But Jennifer had used that silence to build a weapon—and now, Helen wasn't sure what pieces of her life were still real.As Helen stumbled back to her car, rain pouring down, her phone buzzed.
A message from an unknown number.
A video.
She opened it—and her breath stopped.It was Sebastian.Standing outside a hospital. With a woman.Katherine Voss is alive.And in his arms?That same baby from the photo
A voice in the background whispered
"He never told you the whole truth… because the lie is who he is now."