Chapter 29- The Ghost's Ledger
The world felt as if it were spinning off its axis. Ten years ago, when I was sitting alone in a freezing apartment crying into a pillow, praying for enough money to feed my newborn twins, I believed I was the only soul fighting for survival.
"Surrogate contract?" I gasped, grabbing Ethan’s lapels as we sprinted off the wooden dock toward the main house. "Ethan! What surrogate contract?! Ten years ago, you paid thirty dollars to throw me into the rain! I gave birth to Noah and Sophie in a municipal clinic!"
"I don't know, Clara!" Ethan roared into the night air, pulling out his sidearm as Marcus rushed down the porch steps to meet us with his weapon drawn. "Marcus! Seal the interior gates! Call legal counsel right now!"
"Boss! The sheriff’s department is already at the outer gate!" Marcus reported, his eyes wild with stress. "They have a signed federal writ! They aren't here with guns—they're here with a court order to take DNA mouth swabs from the children!"
We burst into the foyer just as the front double doors opened.
Standing between two uniformed Cook County sheriff deputies was the woman from the photograph. She wore high-heeled boots and a tailored designer coat, holding a leather briefcase. When she turned her face toward the light, my heart stopped beating entirely.
It was looking into a twisted, distorted mirror. Her smile was cold, calculating, devoid of any sisterly warmth.
"Hello, Clara," Vivian said, her voice smooth and dripping with poisonous grace. "It’s been twenty years. You grew up to be quite the Chairwoman... living in my house, raising my children."
May you like
"Your children?!" I shrieked, stepping forward with my fists clenched, only for Ethan to catch my waist and hold me back. "I carried Noah and Sophie for nine months! I bled for them! I starved for them!"
"You carried them, dear sister," Vivian smiled, pulling a heavy sheaf of notarized legal documents from her briefcase. "Because my uterus was damaged in the boating accident twenty years ago. Ten years ago, when Ethan’s father stripped you of your name, he paid me five million dollars to provide the biological egg line for Ethan’s heir. You weren't a mother, Clara. You were just the paid vessel."
