My Husband Forced Me to Serve Drinks at His Promotion Gala — Then the Board Announced I Inherited the Entire $40 Million Corporation
Detective Moreau and his team quickly located Marcus, still disoriented and trembling from his night in the spectral library. He offered no resistance, only incoherent mumbles about cold and shadows. The police took his initial statement, though it seemed mostly to consist of blaming “the house” for everything.
With Marcus temporarily subdued, I knew I had one more difficult conversation ahead of me. Aunt Beatrice. She was the hidden connection, the person who had known my true lineage all along, yet had allowed Marcus to suppress it.
I walked to her sun-drenched bedroom, a stark contrast to the oppressive library where Marcus had been trapped. The room smelled of lavender and old lace. Aunt Beatrice lay propped up in her elaborate four-poster bed, her frail hands clutching a silk blanket. Her eyes, usually sharp and stern, were clouded with a deep sorrow.
“Aunt Beatrice,” I said, my voice gentle but firm. “We need to talk. About the DuBois legacy. And about Marcus.”
She flinched at his name, turning her head away. “He’s a fool, that boy. Always was. Too much greed, not enough sense.”
“He used your name, Aunt Beatrice,” I pressed, sitting on the edge of her bed. “He forged a Power of Attorney to freeze my accounts, using your endorsement. Did you know what you were signing?”
She turned back, her eyes brimming with tears. A single tear traced a path down her wrinkled cheek. “I… I knew he wanted papers. He said they were to help manage your ‘carelessness’ with money, to make sure you were ‘protected’ as his wife. He said it was for our family’s future, for the Gaines name to rise.”
She sniffled, pulling a lace handkerchief from under her pillow. “I knew it was wrong, Maya. Deep down, I knew. But he was so convincing. So proud. He promised to make the Gaines name equal to DuBois, to put us on the map.”
My heart ached for the years of manipulation, the lies that had clouded her judgment. “And the DuBois lineage? The true heir? You knew it was me, didn’t you?”
Her chin trembled. She looked away, her gaze settling on an antique photograph on her bedside table – a faded image of a woman strikingly similar to me, her arm linked with a dignified man. It was Adeline DuBois.
“Yes, child,” she whispered, her voice barely audible. “I knew. My mother, she told me stories. Of the mark, the bloodline. Of the spirit of the house. She said Adeline DuBois would never rest until the true heir reclaimed what was hers.”
A shiver ran down my spine. “The spectral presence in the manor. It’s real, isn’t it? It was always there?”
Aunt Beatrice nodded slowly, her eyes wide with a mixture of fear and reverence. “Oh, it’s real. My mother warned me. This house, it has a spirit. A protector. It recognizes the DuBois blood, Maya. And it has always, *always* destroyed outsiders who try to steal the heritage through deceit.”
She turned to me, her gaze piercing. “It targets spouses, Maya. Any spouse who betrays the true DuBois bloodline, who tries to wrest control, who brings dishonor. Adeline’s spirit… it will never tolerate it.”
My mind flashed back to Marcus’s terror in the gallery, the instant extinguishing of the flame in the library, the freezing cold. It wasn’t random phenomena. It was focused. It was vengeance.
“Marcus… he will pay a price far beyond legal consequences, won’t he?” I asked, a chill that had nothing to do with the spectral presence running through me.
Aunt Beatrice simply nodded, her eyes fixed on mine. “The house protects its own. It always has. And it always will.”
Her confession was a heavy burden, a revelation of long-held secrets and a generational conspiracy. But it also explained everything. Aunt Beatrice’s complicity, Marcus’s reckless arrogance, and the inexplicable, terrifying power that had been silently rising to my defense. The true matriarch, beyond the grave, was indeed fighting for her bloodline.
More Stories
+ There are no comments
Add yours