Chapter 3 - The Secret Trust of New HavenMy mother dropped back into her chair as if she had been struck by lightning.

“That... that’s impossible!” my father yelled, stepping toward Travis. “Emily is just a social worker! I am George Sterling’s nephew! I am the head of this family!”

“You were his nephew, Mr. Hayes,” Travis countered, his eyes cold as ice. “And twenty-six years ago, when Emily’s biological mother—George Sterling’s only daughter—passed away during childbirth, George entrusted Emily to your care alongside a monthly four-thousand-dollar guardianship stipend.”

I stood frozen beside the dining table, my mind spinning into a vortex of complete shock.

My parents... were not my biological parents.

The family who had treated me like a maid, who had forced me to sit at the cold end of the table, who had made me sleep on a cot while Madison had everything... were paid guardians who had lied to me my entire life!

“George Sterling knew your character, Mr. Hayes,” Travis continued, pulling a second stack of bank audit ledgers from his folder. “He knew you and your wife were narcissistic, greedy opportunists. So he embedded a secret condition in the guardianship trust.”

My mother’s hands began to shake violently.

“The trust stipulated that on Emily’s twenty-sixth birthday, an independent investigator would enter your household under an assumed identity to evaluate how Emily was treated,” Travis revealed, a sharp, lethal smile touching his lips. “If she was loved and cherished as a true daughter, your family would receive a fifty-million-dollar secondary annuity.”

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Madison let out a high-pitched shriek of pure horror. “FIFTY MILLION DOLLARS?!”

“However,” Travis added, his voice dropping into a razor-sharp register, “if the investigator documented emotional abuse, financial exploitation, or physical mistreatment... the entire annuity would be permanently revoked, and full criminal fraud charges would be filed for embezzlement of her monthly guardianship funds.”