Chapter 3 - Unraveling the Deceit
Ten minutes later, inside the private back room of an upscale coffee shop across from the cemetery, Beatrice sat huddled in a booth, wincing under the glare of William’s security team posted at the door. Maya was sitting nearby at a corner table, happily devouring a hot chocolate and a plate of fresh pastries provided by the terrified cafe manager.
William leaned across the table, his blue eyes burning like frozen steel. "Eight years ago, Clara left. She told me she was done with me. Now I find her child begging for food while you profit off her. Talk, Beatrice, or I will have federal prosecutors freeze every asset you own before the sun sets today."
Beatrice began to sob, a harsh, ugly sound born of fear rather than remorse. "It wasn't my fault, William! It was your mother! Mrs. Eleanor Hartwell!"
William felt the room drop five degrees. "My mother?"
"Eleanor came to Clara when she found out Clara was pregnant," Beatrice confessed, her voice shaking violently as she reached for a glass of water with trembling hands. "Your mother said a penniless artist like Clara would ruin your reputation and destroy your path to taking over Hartwell Financial. She offered Clara two million dollars to disappear. When Clara refused, Eleanor threatened to destroy Clara’s father—to frame him for embezzlement and ruin his life."
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Beatrice took a ragged breath. "Clara was terrified. She left New York and hid in a small town in upstate. She raised Maya on her own, teaching music lessons. But Eleanor kept tabs on her. When Clara got sick last year, she sent money to me—begging me to take care of Maya if anything happened to her. But when Clara died, Eleanor found out. She paid me fifty thousand dollars to keep Maya hidden in the city, to make sure you never, ever found out she existed!"
William sat back, the breath leaving his body in a slow, terrible hiss. His mother—the pristine matriarch of the Hartwell dynasty, the woman who had sat beside him at Olivia’s funeral weeping bitter tears—had intentionally starved her own granddaughter to protect her family’s precious social status.
