Chapter 4 - The Video They Tried to Delete
I called 911 from my car.
Police entered my house before I did.
Nobody was inside.
But somebody had been.
My desk drawers were open.
The box containing Dad’s records had been emptied across the floor.
The DNA report was gone.
Whoever entered had known exactly what they wanted.
Unfortunately for them, I had photographed it.
Detective Velez stared at the image on my phone.
“This changes the motive.”
“I don’t understand the motive.”
“Neither do I.”
I did one thing immediately.
I changed every lock.
Then I called my mother.
She answered on the first ring.
“Where are you?”
“Why?”
“I want to talk.”
“You’ve had thirty-three years.”
“Sloan.”
“Who was my biological father?”
Silence.
It lasted nine seconds.
I counted.
Then Laurelai said, “Come to my house.”
“No.”
“We shouldn’t discuss this over the phone.”
“Then discuss it with Detective Velez.”
She inhaled.
“You involved the police in something that has nothing to do with them.”
“Someone broke into my house.”
“What?”
Her surprise sounded genuine.
I hated that I could no longer trust even my professional instincts around my own family.
“I’m asking once. Who was my father?”
“Your father was the man who raised you.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“I loved him.”
“Still not what I asked.”
She started crying.
I nearly ended the call.
Then she whispered a name.
“Jonathan Vale.”
I knew it.
Everyone in our city knew it.
Vale Broadcasting.
Vale Foundation.
Vale Studios.
Jonathan Vale had built one of the largest privately held regional media companies in the state.
He had died four months earlier.
I sat down.
“You’re saying Jonathan Vale was my biological father?”
“Yes.”
“Did he know?”
“Yes.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“Did Dad know?”
“Yes.”
“Did Delaney?”
“No.”
“Hayes?”
Silence.
That was enough.
“When did Hayes find out?”
“I don’t know.”
“You do.”
“After Jonathan died.”
Everything connected at once.
The wedding.
The cameras.
The manufactured humiliation.
The injury.
The hospital.
The sample.
“What did they want from me?”
My mother began sobbing.
I felt nothing.
“Sloan, I was trying to protect you.”
“From what?”
“Jonathan’s estate.”
That sentence made no sense.
“Why would I need protection from an estate?”
“Because Jonathan left instructions.”
“What instructions?”
“He never publicly acknowledged you. But after he died, his attorneys contacted me.”
My skin prickled.
“He left something to me.”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“I don’t know everything.”
“Mom.”
“A trust.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying.”
“I swear.”
“Why did Hayes need my blood?”
Silence again.
Then:
“DNA.”
I closed my eyes.
The point under the tiara.
The fake nurse.
The hospital.
The sample.
They had wanted biological material.
But why stage an injury to obtain it?
There were easier ways.
That bothered me.
I called Velez.
She listened.
Then she said, “I think we’ve been looking at this backward.”
“How?”
“What if the injury wasn’t primarily meant to get your DNA?”
“What else?”
“To create a documented incident involving you.”
I remembered Hayes’s business.
Viral confrontations.
Public meltdowns.
Authentic reactions.
“They wanted me to look unstable.”
“That’s possible.”
“Why?”
“Estate disputes.”
My stomach tightened.
The next day we got the answer.
Jonathan Vale’s attorney contacted me.
Eleanor Price was seventy, silver-haired, and terrifyingly precise.
She placed a document on the conference table.
Jonathan had created a trust.
Its beneficiary was his unacknowledged biological daughter.
Me.
The assets included money, property, and—more importantly—a significant voting interest in Vale Media Holdings.
Hayes hadn’t simply married into my family.
He had discovered that his wife’s supposedly boring older sister might inherit influence over the very media industry he desperately wanted access to.
“There’s a condition,” Eleanor said.
“Of course there is.”
“Not the kind you think.”
Jonathan had anticipated challenges.
The trust required independent DNA verification.
But there was another clause.
If I declined the inheritance, the voting interest would transfer to a charitable foundation.
“So Hayes couldn’t get it.”
“No.”
“Then what did he want?”
Eleanor folded her hands.
“Control.”
“How?”
“Through you.”
The answer landed heavily.
If I were publicly discredited, emotionally destabilized, or manipulated into signing something...
I thought of the wedding.
My mother telling me to go to the bridal suite.
“Was there paperwork at the wedding?”
Eleanor’s expression changed.
“What paperwork?”
I called Delaney.
She didn’t answer.
I called again.
Nothing.
Then Owen called me.
His voice shook.
“I found the missing file.”
“What missing file?”
“The bridal suite camera.”
My pulse jumped.
“There was a camera in the bridal suite?”
“Hayes had me install one.”
“Why?”
“I thought it was for behind-the-scenes footage.”
“What did it record?”
“You need to see it.”
He sent me a secure link.
I opened it.
Timestamp: twenty minutes before the tiara incident.
My mother entered the bridal suite carrying a folder.
Hayes followed.
He opened the folder.
On top was a document bearing my name.
VOLUNTARY ASSIGNMENT OF BENEFICIAL INTEREST.
My mother stared at it.
“I told you,” she said. “Sloan will never sign this.”
Hayes smiled.
“She will after tonight.”
Then Delaney entered.
She was already holding the tiara.
She looked at the document.
Then at Hayes.
And asked one question.
“What happens if she refuses?”
Hayes reached into his jacket.
He placed something on the table.
My breath stopped.
It was a second document.
At the top were the words:
EMERGENCY PSYCHIATRIC PETITION.
May you like
And beneath them was a signature.
Mine...
