CHAPTER 3 — THE GIRL THEY ERASED FROM THE FAMILY TREE
The chandeliers flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then stabilized again.
But the atmosphere had changed.
The man slowly reached toward the girl.
“Lily… can I—”
“Don’t touch her,” the woman in blue snapped.
But he ignored her.
His eyes stayed locked on the child.
“Just your hand,” he said softly.
The girl hesitated.
Then placed her small fingers in his palm.
The moment they touched…
he froze.
His entire body stiffened.
Like a memory had physically struck him.
“No…” he whispered.
“That’s impossible…”
The crowd leaned in.
“What is it?” someone muttered.
The man slowly turned his wrist.
On his skin…
a matching scar.
Small.
Crescent-shaped.
The girl gasped.
“I have one too!”
She lifted her sleeve.
Same mark.
Identical shape.
The ballroom erupted in whispers.
The woman in blue stepped back.
“That’s staged,” she said quickly. “It has to be.”
But the man didn’t hear her.
Because everything was collapsing inside his mind.
A memory surfaced.
A hospital corridor.
A woman screaming.
A child being taken away.
And a promise.
“If anything happens to me… find her.”
His hand tightened around the crest.
Then he spoke, voice shaking.
“She’s not just my sister.”
A pause.
“She’s the last living heir of this family line.”
Silence fell like a blade.
The woman in blue went pale.
“What did you just say?”
But the man was already looking at the girl differently now.
Not as a stranger.
Not as a child.
As something stolen.
Something hidden.
Something that should never have been lost.
He stood slowly.
And turned toward the entire ballroom.
“Lock the doors.”
The guards hesitated.
Then obeyed.
Click.
The sound echoed through the marble hall.
Gasps erupted immediately.
“What is going on?”
“Why are we locked in?”
But the man didn’t answer.
He only looked down at the girl.
And said the final words that changed everything.
“Because if she is who I think she is…”
“…someone in this room committed treason against my family.”
The woman in blue took one step back.
May you like
For the first time…
her confidence shattered.
