Chapter 3 - The Ghost’s Sister
The penthouse study went completely silent.
Julian stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Central Park, the night sky glittering against the dark glass. Behind him, the double mahogany doors were locked. Outside, two private security guards stood posted, instructed to keep Victoria inside the master suite.
Maya Vance sat in a plush leather armchair, holding a glass of water with both hands. Her uniform apron was gone, replaced by a simple black sweater she had pulled from her bag.
"Start from the beginning," Julian said, his voice flat, drained of all warmth. "And don't leave out a single word."
Maya took a slow sip of water. "Four years ago, my sister Clara was seven months pregnant with twins. She lived alone in Soho. You were in London expanding your company’s European division, but you sent her money, arranged her medical care, and promised to return before her due date."
Julian nodded slowly, his chest tightening. "I loved her. I intended to marry her, despite my family’s objections."
"My sister loved you too," Maya said softly, her eyes flashing with old grief. "On the night of October fourteenth, Clara went into sudden labor. She called the private medical transport line your family set up. She was brought to St. Jude’s Hospital—a facility owned by Victoria’s father, Senator Edward Montgomery."
Julian’s jaw clenched. "Go on."
"I was nineteen, attending college in Boston," Maya continued. "I got a call from the hospital at three in the morning. A doctor named Vance—no relation to us—told me Clara had suffered a massive uterine rupture during an emergency C-section. He said the babies died in utero, and Clara passed away from internal hemorrhaging twenty minutes later."
"That’s what the official death certificate said," Julian whispered. "That’s what Victoria told me when I landed in New York. She said she was at the hospital supporting my family, that she tried to save them..."
"It was all a lie," Maya said, her voice dropping into a deadly, quiet register. "Six months ago, our mother passed away from cancer. While clearing out her attic in Brooklyn, I found a sealed box containing Clara’s personal belongings, returned by the hospital. Among them was Clara’s old phone. The screen was shattered, but I paid a forensic technician to recover the data."
Maya reached into her pocket, pulled out a small black flash drive, and laid it on the heavy wooden desk between them.
"What's on it?" Julian asked, staring at the small piece of plastic.
"An unsent voice memo," Maya said, her voice shaking. "Recorded at 11:42 PM on October fourteenth inside Delivery Room 4. Clara recorded it herself while she was fading out from the anesthesia."
Julian stepped toward the desk, his fingers hovering over the flash drive as if it were made of glass. "What does she say?"
"She says..." Maya swallowed back a sob. "...she says Victoria Montgomery was in the room. She says Victoria took the babies out of the incubator while they were still breathing. And she heard Victoria tell the doctor, 'Make sure the mother doesn't wake up. Julian can never know these children belong to a commoner.'"
Julian’s breath hitched violently. The blood roared in his ears so loudly he could barely hear the rain beginning to lash against the glass windows behind him.
The pieces of his broken life were crashing together in a nightmare of horrifying clarity. Four years ago, after returning to New York devastated by Clara’s death, Victoria had been by his side—grieving, supportive, conveniently revealing three weeks later that she had also been pregnant with his children from a brief, forgotten night months prior. She had given birth to "their" twins in a private facility upstate.
She hadn't given birth at all. She had stolen Clara’s newborn twins, declared Clara dead, and passed the children off as her own to force Julian into a political marriage that united the Sterling and Montgomery empires.
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"My boys..." Julian whispered, tears burning behind his eyes as he thought of Leo and Noah—their silence, their terror, their instinctual rejection of Victoria for four long years. "They didn't have developmental trauma. They were terrified of her."
"They remember her voice from the night they were born," Maya said softly. "Children retain pre-verbal trauma, Mr. Sterling. They knew their mother’s killer was holding them."
