Chapter 20: The Monster I Made

The steel-cold door closed with a sound I will hear for the rest of my life. Clang!. It was like the sound of a lid closing on a coffin.

I sat on the narrow and worn-out bed. My silk dress felt like a costume from a play that had ended hours ago. The walls of the cell were grey and peeling and smelled like cheap floor cleaner. It was a smell I hadn’t been around in thirty years, but my body knew it right away. It was the smell of being poor.

I looked at my hands. They were shaking. I, Lily Vance, was behind bars.

My lawyer had been upset. "It’s the attempted murder charge, Lily. Gabriel is talking. Catherine is telling everything. Edward... Edward gave them the proof about the fake French papers. He isn't holding back."

Edward. My own son. My own flesh and blood put me here.

I leaned my head against the cold wall and closed my eyes. The dark took me back. Back to my hometown—Knort—forty years ago. I wasn't Lily Vance then. I was Lily Pierce. A girl who shared one bed with three sisters. A girl who watched her mother give up her pride for a loaf of bread.

I remembered the day Arthur Vance found me. I was working as a waitress in a diner that smelled like grease and failure. He was the best-looking man I had ever seen. He wore a coat that cost more than my father made in a year. He looked at me, and for the first time in my life, I felt seen.

"You have fire in you," Arthur had said, touching my cheek with his gloved hand.

He pulled me out of the dirt. He gave me a name, a mansion, and a life full of gold. But Arthur was soft. He believed in things like "giving" and "fairness." He didn't understand that the world is a beast that eats people who don't fight back.

On his deathbed, he looked at me with sad eyes. "Don't turn Edward into a statue, Lily. Let him love."

I didn't listen. Love is for people who aren't scared of being hungry. I made a promise the day Arthur’s heart stopped: I would never go back. I would never be that girl in the diner again. If that meant controlling the money, if that meant faking a marriage, if that meant getting rid of a girl like Serena who reminded me too much of my old self, then so be it.

I opened my eyes and looked at the small window with bars. The moon was high. Somewhere out there, Edward and Serena were happy. They thought they had won.

A small, dry laugh came out of me.

There was a knock on the steel door. The small opening slid back, and a guard’s face showed. "You have a visitor. Ten minutes."

I stood up, fixing my dress. I thought it was my lawyer. I thought it was a deal.

The door opened, and a woman walked in. She was wearing a nurse’s uniform. Her face was hidden behind a mask. She didn't look like a lawyer.

"I didn't ask for a doctor," I said.

The woman pulled down her mask. My heart skipped. It wasn't a nurse. It was a face I had used to build my web of lies.

"Louise?" I whispered.

Louise Bennet stood there. Her eyes were dark. She didn't look like the scared girl Gabriel and I manipulated for years.

"Gabriel is in the cell next to yours, Lily," Louise said, her voice low. "He thinks he’s going to save himself by giving Edward the papers. He thinks he’s going to tell them about the other secret."

I felt the blood in my face drain. "Louise, I can help you. I have money your father doesn't know about. I can get you out of the country."

"I don't want to leave," Louise said, taking a step toward me. "You used my name for ten years. You made me a ghost wife to keep your son single. You told me it was to protect the family business. But then I found the real contract, Lily. The one your husband hid in his library back at Berklene."

I froze. "What are you talking about?"

"The marriage rule," Louise said. Arthur wanted Edward to take control of the Vance estate and all his assets only if he got married. He left half the company to any child born from a Vance."

I fell back, hitting the bed. Arthur. Even in death, he still left nothing in my name.

"Serena is pregnant," Louise kept going, her voice full of hate. "I saw her at the hospital. She has the look. That means the moment that baby is born, the Vance trust starts. And because you hid that rule for ten years... that’s fraud, Lily. Federal fraud."

"Why are you telling me this?" I asked angrily.

Louise leaned close to the bars. "Because I’m not here to save you. I’m here to tell you that I made a deal with Michael. I’m giving him the real contract. But in return, I want the Bennet name off of this mess you created."

She leaned closer, her breath hot against my ear. "And there’s one more thing. You thought the shooter at the docks was Gabriel’s man? He wasn't. He was mine. I wasn't trying to kill Edward, Lily. I was trying to kill Serena. I wanted to make sure that Blake's family line ended before the baby and Serena could take my rightful place by Edward’s side."

I stared at her in horror. I had spent thirty years trying to be a monster to protect my wealth, but I had created a monster even worse than me. Louise wasn't a victim. She was my greed, grown up.

"You failed," I whispered. "The shooter missed."

"For now," Louise said, pulling her mask back up. "But the trial is going to be long. And accidents happen in busy courtrooms."

She turned to the door and signaled the guard. Before she walked out, she looked back at me. "Happy anniversary, Lily. It’s been ten years since you started this lie. I think it’s time we both watched it burn."

The door slammed shut again.

I sat back down on the bed. The silence of the cell pressed in on me. I had fought so hard to stay in control, to stay rich, to stay powerful. I had lied, cheated, and broken my own son's heart.

And now, I was locked in a room with my memories, while a girl I had tried to destroy carried the key to the empire I had lost. I reached out and touched the cold, grey floor.

I was back in the gutter. And this time, there was no Arthur Vance coming to save me.

Serena and her unborn baby are in more danger than ever, and the threat is coming from someone Edward doesn’t expect.