Chapter 3

Clara POV:

The air in the study turned thin and sharp, each breath a struggle. The smiling family on the screen seemed to mock me, their happiness a vibrant, cruel poison. I felt a wave of dizziness, my hand flying to the heavy oak desk to steady myself.

My gaze drifted from the screen to the digital clock in the corner. 3:17 AM. The entire building was silent, but inside my head, a storm was raging.

I couldn't stop now. The unlocked laptop was a treasure trove, a map of their deception, and I had to explore every inch of it before he woke. With shaking hands, I navigated to his photo gallery.

It was all there. Five years of a hidden life, meticulously documented.

There were pictures of a newborn Finn, swaddled in a blue blanket, with Liam looking down at him, his expression one of pure, unadulterated awe. There were videos of Finn's first steps, taken in a bright, airy house I'd never seen before, with Seraphina's delighted laughter in the background. Christmas mornings, birthday parties, trips to the beach. An entire timeline of a life I was never meant to see.

A life he lived while he was with me.

I scrolled through the dates. Finn's first birthday had been the same weekend Liam told me he had to fly to an urgent political conference in Chicago. A family beach trip coincided with a week he was supposedly on a solo retreat, "clearing his head."

Every excuse, every late night at the office, every unexplained absence clicked into place, forming a horrifying mosaic of betrayal.

**Then I found a folder labeled "Household." My stomach clenched. Inside were dozens of files with coded names-utility bills, property taxes, school invoices. It took me twenty minutes of cross-referencing street names and account numbers, but I found it: a property management agreement for a house in a wealthy, secluded suburb just an hour outside the city. He wasn't just hiding them. He had built them a gilded cage.**

**The most damning discovery was buried in a subfolder labeled "Trusts." It was a document establishing a significant trust fund. The beneficiary was Seraphina Collins. The funding source, however, wasn't Liam. It was a transfer from a private wealth management fund I recognized-the Walsh Family Foundation, managed by my mother, Margaret.**

The screen blurred as tears I didn't know I was holding back finally fell. It wasn't just Liam. It was my mother. My own mother, who had looked me in the eye just hours ago and spoken of punishment and reflection, was **using a complex financial instrument to secretly fund** the comfortable life of the woman who tried to ruin me.

My father was probably in on it, too. This level of deception required the full cooperation of the Walsh political machine. They hadn't just chosen Seraphina over me; they had made me the unwitting guardian of their secret, the public face of a lie designed to protect their precious reputation and **whatever dark secret Seraphina held over them.**

I felt a guttural sob rise in my chest, and I clamped my hand over my mouth, choking it back down. I couldn't break. Not here. Not now.

I remembered a conversation from a few months ago. I had brought up wanting a child, wanting to start our own family. Liam had deflected, saying the timing wasn't right with the election coming up. He'd said, "A baby deserves our full attention, Lynn. I want to give our child everything."

He already had. He had given his child everything. He just hadn't given it to our child.

I methodically began to copy the files. Using a small, encrypted flash drive I kept on my keychain for work, I downloaded everything. The photos, the videos, the financial records, the **trust documents**. Each downloaded file felt like a piece of ammunition.

As the final file transferred, a new email popped up on his screen. The sender was Seraphina. The subject line was "He's asking about you."

My blood froze. I clicked it open.

`Liam, Finn keeps asking when he can see 'Uncle Liam' again. It's getting harder to explain why you can't stay the night anymore. He misses you. I miss you. Is the timeline still the same? Just a few more months of this charade? I saw the new photos of you and her at the fundraiser. She looks so plain. It kills me that you have to pretend to love that social worker.`

The words were a physical blow. `That social worker.` That's all I was to them. A prop. A necessary inconvenience.

A cold, hard fury I had never known began to burn away the grief. They thought I was plain. They thought I was a fool. They had underestimated me for five years.

That was a mistake they were going to regret.

I safely ejected the flash drive, closed the laptop, and wiped the faint traces of my fingerprints from its surface. I slipped back into the guest room as silently as I had left.

Lying in the dark, I clutched the small flash drive in my hand. It was a bomb. And I was going to wait for the perfect moment to detonate it. Their carefully constructed world was about to come crashing down. And I would be the one to light the match.