Chapter 182
Elena: POV
The silence that followed Julian's confession felt suffocating, pressing down on us from all sides.
I stared at him, searching his face for any hint of deception, but all I saw was raw anguish etched into every line of his features.
"When I got there, you had already fallen from the bridge," he repeated, his voice barely above a whisper.
His hand still hovered near mine, trembling slightly, but he didn't try to touch me again.
"The Coast Guard searched for hours. Days. They found your coat downstream, torn and bloodied, and everyone told me to accept that you were gone. But I couldn't."
I wanted to look away from the devastation in his eyes, but I couldn't.
Some masochistic part of me needed to see this, needed to witness proof that I'd mattered to him, even if it came four years too late.
But there was something else gnawing at me, something that had been eating away at my consciousness ever since I'd sat in that taxi and searched my own name on my phone, reading about a life I couldn't remember.
"My mother," I said abruptly, pulling my hand away from his proximity.
"When I was in the taxi earlier, I looked up information about Josephine Vance. About what happened to her."
I watched his face carefully, looking for any flicker of guilt.
"The news articles said there were irregularities in her death. Something about medication issues at the hospital."
Julian went very still, and I saw something flash across his features—surprise, maybe, that I'd already started digging into my past.
"What else did you find?"
"Not much," I admitted, my voice tight.
"Just that she died four years ago, right before I—" I stopped, the words catching in my throat.
"Right before I went into the river. Alexander told me it was cancer, that she'd been in palliative care and had chosen to stop treatment. But the articles made it sound like there was more to it than that. Like maybe it wasn't natural."
Julian's jaw clenched, and I watched him weigh his words carefully, as if afraid of how I'd react.
"There's a lot you don't know," he said finally.
"A lot I need to tell you about that night."
My stomach dropped.
"What happened?"
Julian took a deep breath, his hand curling into a fist on his thigh.
"The night your mother died, you called me. It was around six in the morning, New York time. I was in Singapore—there was an acquisition that needed my attention, a deal that was falling apart."
His voice was rough with self-recrimination.
"You were hysterical. Screaming that I'd killed her, that I'd sent someone to murder her. I tried to tell you I didn't know what you were talking about, but you wouldn't listen. You just kept saying—"
His voice cracked.
"You kept saying I'd taken everything from you."
I felt my breath catch, trying to imagine myself making that call, feeling that level of rage and grief.
"Why would I think you'd killed her?"
"Because of what your mother said before she died," Julian said quietly, and something in his tone made my blood run cold.
"According to the hospital staff, Josephine regained consciousness briefly, just minutes before the end. She was confused, disoriented from the medication, but she managed to say a few words."
He looked at me, and I saw years of guilt swimming in his eyes.
"She said my name. Said I'd 'sent someone.' And then she was gone."
The words hit me like a physical blow.
I tried to imagine my mother—this woman I couldn't remember but who'd apparently loved me enough to raise me as her own—dying with my husband's name on her lips, believing he'd betrayed us both.
"Did you?" I whispered, even though part of me already knew the answer.
"Did you send someone?"
"No," Julian said, and the word was absolute, final.
"But I know who did. And I know why your mother said those words."
I stared at him, my heart pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat.
"Tell me."
Julian pulled out his phone, his fingers moving across the screen with barely controlled urgency.
"After you disappeared, after they declared you dead, I couldn't let it go. I hired investigators—the best in the business. Had them look into everything about that night. Your mother's death, the hospital records, the security footage, the medication logs."
He found what he was looking for and turned the screen toward me.
"The morphine pump in your mother's room was tampered with. Someone changed the dosage from two milligrams per hour to twenty-five milligrams per hour. That's more than ten times the prescribed amount."
I felt bile rise in my throat.
"Someone murdered her."
"Yes," Julian said quietly.
"And we know who."
He swiped to another file, and I saw what looked like grainy security footage.
A woman in scrubs, her face partially obscured by a surgical mask, entering a hospital room.
The timestamp read 5:43 AM.
"This is from the hospital's security system," Julian explained.
"The woman you're looking at isn't a real nurse. She used a stolen ID badge to access the oncology ward. She was only in your mother's room for six minutes, but that was all the time she needed."
"To kill her," I said, my voice flat.
"To adjust the morphine pump," Julian corrected grimly.
"And to make sure Josephine died believing I'd sent her."
I looked up from the phone, confusion warring with horror.
"What do you mean?"
Julian's expression darkened.
"The hospital room had an audio backup system—something to do with liability and patient care documentation. Most of the time, the recordings are just ambient noise, medical staff doing their rounds. But that morning—"
He swiped to another file, this one an audio player.
"That morning, we caught something."
My hand was shaking as I pressed play.
At first, all I could hear was the steady beep of medical equipment, the soft hiss of oxygen, the distant sound of footsteps in the hallway.
Then a door opening, soft footsteps approaching the bed.
And then a voice—female, cultured, dripping with false sympathy.
"Poor Josephine. You really thought she'd be happy with him, didn't you? That your little foster daughter would be enough to keep Julian Sterling satisfied?"
I felt my breath catch.
The voice was unfamiliar to me, but there was something in its tone—something cold and calculated—that made my skin crawl.
The voice continued, softer now, almost tender.
"He sent me, you know. Julian. He wanted me to deliver a message before you died. He wants you to know that Elena was never anything more than a contract to him. A burden he's been trying to escape for three years. And now that you're gone, now that she has no one left to turn to—well, it won't be long before she realizes she's better off dead too."
I heard a weak sound—my mother trying to speak, trying to protest—but the voice talked over her, relentless.
"Don't try to talk, Josephine. Just listen. Julian sent someone—sent me—to make sure you understood the truth before the end. Your daughter married a monster. And there's nothing you can do to save her now. Just close your eyes and let go. It'll all be over soon."
The audio cut off, leaving only the sound of my ragged breathing filling the silence.
I stared at the phone in my hands, my vision blurring with tears I couldn't hold back.
"That's Victoria Astor," Julian said, his voice hollow.
"The woman I told you about. The one who'd been obsessed with me since we were children. The one I thought had saved my life."
He gestured at the phone, his hand shaking with barely suppressed rage.
"She disguised herself as a nurse that night. Stole an ID badge, wore scrubs, walked right into your mother's room. And then she—"
His voice broke.
"She poisoned your mother's last moments with lies. Made sure Josephine died believing I'd sent someone to kill her. Made sure that when you found out what your mother had said, you'd blame me."
I couldn't speak.
Couldn't process what I was hearing.
The cruelty of it—the calculated, deliberate cruelty—was beyond anything I could have imagined.
This woman had murdered my mother not just physically, but emotionally, had stolen her final moments of peace and filled them with lies and terror.