I caught my husband kissing my older sister in my mother’s kitchen while twenty people celebrated my father’s sixty-fifth birthday in the next room. / Chapter 26 / 120

Chapter 26 - The Mother's Mask

Dad stood frozen at the head of the cellar stairs. I could see the sixty-five years of devotion, betrayal, and heartbreak waging war across his face.

"Stay down here, Maya," Dad whispered, his voice trembling but completely steady in purpose.

"Dad, no! She has armed men!" I pleaded, clutching his arm.

"She won't shoot me," Dad said, gently prying my fingers away. "Not until she gets what she came for. And I need to look my wife in the eye one last time."

Before Liam or I could stop him, Dad pushed the cellar door open and stepped out into the open kitchen, standing under the bright pendant lights with his head held high.

Eleanor stopped in her tracks. Her lips curved into a faint, victorious smile. "There you are, Arthur. You look exhausted. This cold sea air never did agree with your lungs."

"Margaret is alive, Eleanor," Dad said plainly, his voice echoing through the silent, wrecked house.

The smile on Eleanor’s face didn't shatter—it simply hardened into ice. She didn't flinch. She didn't look surprised.

"Margaret was always weak, Arthur," Eleanor replied smoothly, taking a slow step forward. "She lacked the stomach for what was required to keep this family afloat. Our father was an old fool who would have let the company sink into bankruptcy out of some provincial sense of honor. I saved us. Everything you have—this land, your boat, the girls' trust funds—was bought with the decisions I had the courage to make."

"You burned Father alive in his office!" Dad bellowed, his voice shaking the rafters. "You locked the door from the outside!"

Eleanor let out a soft, dismissive sigh. "A tragic necessity. He was going to the federal authorities. He would have ruined our names. He would have dragged Julianna and Maya through public disgrace before they were even old enough to understand it. I did what a mother does. I protected the dynasty."

"And Richard?" I stepped out from the cellar doorway, refusing to hide in the shadows any longer. Liam followed immediately, his weapon drawn, leveled directly at the chest of the lead tactical guard. "Did you protect the dynasty when you put Richard in my bed? When you instructed him to ruin my marriage?"

Eleanor turned her gaze to me, her green eyes cold and dead. "You were always too sharp for your own good, Maya. Too righteous. Just like your aunt. I needed an heir who could be molded, who would smile for the society pages and sign where she was told. Julianna understood that. You never did."

"I never understood being a monster," I hissed.

"Perhaps," Eleanor murmured. "But you're about to understand reality." She gestured slightly to the guard on her right. "Bring him in."

The side door opened again.