Evelina placed a silver serving tray into three-year-old Orla’s hands and mockingly announced that the little girl was being auctioned off as a servant to repay a porcelain vase she supposedly broke.

Benedict’s hand shook violently as he held the paper. The handwriting was unmistakably Victoria’s—bold, elegant, yet ragged at the edges, as if written in extreme duress.

“If you are reading this, Benedict, then I am already dead, and our child is in grave danger...”

Benedict felt the floor beneath him tilt. Four years ago, he had held Victoria’s lifeless hand in the ICU after her car plunged off the cliff route during a sudden rainstorm. The doctors said she died of internal hemorrhaging after an emergency C-section saved baby Orla.

He read the next lines aloud, his voice dropping into a terrifyingly calm pitch:

“They told you it was an accident. It was not. The brakes on my car were cut. But the person who ordered it is not an outsider. It is someone within your inner circle—someone who discovered the truth about the Vance family's bankrupt empire and my secret investigation into their offshore laundering.”

Benedict snapped his gaze up toward Evelina.

Evelina had collapsed onto her knees, clutching her emerald dress, tears finally ruining her flawless makeup. "Benedict... it’s not what it looks like! She was insane! Victoria was paranoid after the pregnancy!"

"Shut up!" Benedict roared, the echo vibrating through the empty ballroom like thunder.

He turned back to the document. Attached to Victoria's letter were medical DNA reports and blood type tests stamped by the State Forensic Lab.

Benedict skimmed the medical jargon until his eyes hit the red stamped summary:

MATERNITY TEST RESULT: NEGATIVE. PATIENT: VICTORIA STERLING. CHILD: ORLA STERLING.

Benedict froze. His heart stopped beating.

"What... what is this?" Benedict whispered, staring at the official laboratory seal. "Orla isn't Victoria’s daughter?"

Evelina began to laugh—a dry, bitter, desperate sound that echoed unnaturally in the hall. "Now you see, don't you? Now you see why that little brat had to be destroyed!"

"Explain," Benedict commanded, grabbing Evelina by the collar of her gown and hauling her to her feet. "Explain it before I hand you over to security!"

"Victoria was barren, Benedict!" Evelina spat, her eyes wild with venom. "She found out three months before her 'accident' that she could never give you an heir! She was terrified you would leave her, terrified the Sterling board would strip her of her family trust! So she bought a baby on the black market from an illegal surrogate agency! Orla isn't a Sterling! She is a street rat! A nobody!"

Benedict stared at her in disbelief. "And why did you frame Orla tonight?"

"Because three days ago, I found out Victoria hid her original diary and the adoption papers inside that Qing vase before she died!" Evelina yelled, weeping hysterically. "I knew if you ever found out Orla wasn't your biological daughter, you would disinherit her! But if I was the one to expose her, you would hate Victoria and rely on me! I tried to break the vase quietly, but the porcelain was too thick. So I staged the accident at the gala! I put the tray in Orla's hands to make her look like a clumsy monster so the board would force you to cast her aside!"

Benedict looked down at the paper again. But as his eyes scrolled down to the second page of the medical file—the section Evelina had clearly never read carefully—his blood ran cold.