She stood behind me with my severed braid in her hand, laughing as I cried—but ten minutes later, my husband walked in with a guest who made her face go white. / Chapter 31 / 91

Chapter 31 - The Serpent’s True Head

Eleanor backed away from the head of the table, her polished composure disintegrating into frantic panic. "Security! Get in here! Shoot them!"

"The security frequencies are dead, Eleanor," Julianne’s voice rang out as she stepped into the light behind me.

At the sight of Julianne, Eleanor’s breath hitched. She stumbled back against the massive floor-to-ceiling glass window overlooking the lake. "Julianne... you... you died in Geneva..."

"I survived Geneva, just like I survived you," Julianne said smoothly, advancing toward the table.

"Nicholas, darling, listen to me," Eleanor pleaded, her hands shaking as she looked at her son. "They are manipulating you! Clara is not who you think she is! Arthur lied to you! Julianne lied to you!"

"Shut up, Eleanor," Nicholas said, his voice cold, devoid of any filial love. He picked up the platinum filament from the table and handed it to me. "Scan it, Clara. End this."

I approached the terminal at the center of the table. The optical scanner glowed with a faint blue light. The board members sat paralyzed, terrified to make a sound.

I laid the platinum thread across the glass aperture.

The terminal chimed. A string of green cryptographic code cascaded down the wall-mounted monitors.

*BIOMETRIC KEY CONFIRMED.*

*AUTHORITY PROTOCOL: INITIATED.*

*IDENTITY OF FIRSTBORN GRANDDAUGHTER REVEALED:*

A photograph flashed onto the massive display screen.

My heart stopped.

The photograph on the screen wasn't mine.

It wasn't my face.

It was a picture of a little girl with porcelain skin and dark curls, taken twenty years ago, holding hands with Nicholas in the gardens of the Lake Forest estate. And beside the photograph, the official genetic registry displayed a name that sent ice cascading down my spine:

*HEIR DESIGNATE: ELENA STERLING.*

*STATUS: DECEASED.*

*CAUSE OF DEATH: UNRESOLVED HOMICIDE.*

I turned slowly to look at Nicholas. My hands were shaking so hard the gun nearly slipped from my fingers. "Nicholas... who is Elena? You said you didn't have a sister."

Nicholas didn't look at me. He didn't look at his mother either.

He looked at Julianne.

And then, slowly, Julianne raised her silenced pistol. But she didn't aim it at Eleanor.

She aimed it directly at the back of my skull.

"I told you, Arthur had three daughters," Julianne whispered coldly, her voice devoid of any maternal pretense. "You weren't the heir, Clara. You were just the bloodhound used to unlock the vault for the woman who actually killed her."

Behind us, the double doors of the private executive elevator hissed open.

A woman walked into the boardroom, tapping high heels against the marble floor. She wore an ivory trench coat, her hair falling past her waist in an intricate, dark braid that mirrored the exact pattern Eleanor had severed from my head hours before.