Chapter 1

Eleanor Vance set down her crystal glass of champagne, the bubbles fizzing softly on the terrace of her Monte Carlo penthouse. For the last six months, she had been enjoying a well-deserved semi-retirement, a global victory lap after building a tech empire from nothing. Today was a milestone, the day her daughter, Sarah, and her son-in-law, Mark Johnson, would officially take the reins.

A notification pinged on her tablet. It was from a major business news outlet, the headline flashing in bold letters: VANCE TECH SHOCKER: NEW HEIRESS ANNOUNCED AS FOUNDER' S DAUGHTER BRANDED A FRAUD.

Eleanor frowned. She tapped the link. The lead image was a high-resolution photo from the press conference that should have been Sarah' s moment. But it wasn' t Sarah on that stage. It was Mark, his arm wrapped possessively around a smug-looking young woman she had never seen before. Behind them, the Vance Tech logo loomed like a tombstone.

A cold feeling crept up her spine. She immediately dialed Sarah' s number.

It rang.

And rang.

Voicemail.

"Sarah, darling, it' s Mom. I just saw a very strange piece of news. Call me back the second you get this."

Her fingers trembled slightly as she disconnected. This was wrong. Sarah would never miss this call. She tried again, the result the same. The cold feeling was now a block of ice in her stomach. She called Mark' s phone.

He picked up on the second ring, his voice slick and performatively cheerful.

"Eleanor! To what do I owe the pleasure? Enjoying the Riviera, I hope?"

"Mark, what is going on? I can' t reach Sarah, and the news is showing some other woman on stage with you. Who is Lily Miller?"

There was a brief pause on the other end, then a chuckle that made the hairs on Eleanor' s arms stand up. "Ah, you saw that. Well, things have been moving very quickly here. It' s a long story, but let' s just say we discovered some unsettling truths about the Vance family line."

Before Eleanor could demand an explanation, Mark added, "I' m in the middle of a live interview right now, Eleanor. You can watch it. It will clear everything up."

He hung up.

Her assistant, Mr. Henderson, ever efficient, had already sent her a link to the livestream. She clicked it, her heart pounding against her ribs.

The camera was tight on Mark' s face. He looked earnest, concerned, every bit the brilliant tech genius the world thought he was.

"The truth is," Mark said, his voice resonating with false sincerity, "we recently uncovered that Sarah Vance is not, in fact, Eleanor Vance' s biological daughter. She is an illegitimate child, a product of an affair her father had. The real Vance bloodline, the true inheritor of this legacy, is my daughter, Lily."

He gestured to the young woman, Lily Miller, who smiled demurely for the cameras. Standing just behind them was another woman, Jessica Brown, her eyes burning with a triumphant, vengeful fire that Eleanor recognized with a sickening jolt. Jessica had been a junior executive years ago, fired for corporate espionage.

The camera suddenly cut away from the stage to a chaotic scene at the back of the auditorium.

And then Eleanor saw her.

Sarah.

Her daughter was being dragged out by security guards. Her dress was torn at the shoulder, her hair a mess. She was screaming, her face streaked with tears.

"He' s lying! I' m her daughter! Mom, he' s lying!"

Mark' s voiceover continued, smooth as poison. "It' s a tragic situation. Sarah has been... unwell, ever since the truth came out. We are trying to get her the help she needs."

The feed showed a close-up of Sarah' s face, contorted in anguish and disbelief, just before a guard shoved her roughly through an exit door. The screen went back to Mark, his expression a perfect mask of sorrow.

Eleanor stared, unblinking, at the frozen image of her daughter' s pain. The world around her-the sun, the sea, the soft Mediterranean breeze-vanished. All that existed was the fire igniting in her chest, a rage so pure and absolute it burned away every last trace of her retirement bliss.

She picked up the champagne glass and hurled it against the wall. It shattered, the sound sharp and violent in the sudden silence of the penthouse.

She turned to Mr. Henderson, who had appeared silently at her side, his face pale.

"Get the jet ready," she said, her voice low and dangerously calm.

"Immediately, Mrs. Vance."

"And get me everything you can find on Jessica Brown and Lily Miller. Every dirty secret, every skeleton, every unpaid parking ticket. Dig."

"Yes, ma' am."

"I' m going home," Eleanor said, her eyes like chips of flint. "And I' m going to burn their world to the ground."