Chapter 10 y Mother Is Not Dead; She Awaits My Revenge

# Chapter 10: My Mother Is Not Dead; She Awaits My Revenge

Three days after the cemetery revelation, I sat in my attorney's office, signing the divorce papers that would end my marriage to Gideon. He hadn't fought it—not after I showed him the DNA test proving I was his cousin. The scandal would have been unbearable for him, for the company. Better a quick, quiet dissolution with a generous settlement.

"Ms. Vervain," my lawyer said, using my maiden name as I'd requested, "these documents establish your claim to fifteen percent of Monette Enterprises, as agreed in the divorce settlement."

I nodded, signing where indicated. "And the confidentiality agreements?"

"Ironclad. Mr. Monette—the younger—cannot disclose any details about your separation or the reasons behind it."

"Good." I gathered my things, suddenly eager to leave this sterile office with its leather-bound law books and discreet boxes of tissues for weeping divorcées. I was not weeping. I was planning.

Outside, rain lashed against the windows of the waiting town car. The driver held an umbrella for me as I slid into the back seat, only to find Callum already there, impeccable in a charcoal suit.

"Congratulations on your divorce," he said, as the car pulled away from the curb. "Efficient as always."

I didn't bother asking how he knew my schedule. Callum Monette's information network was as extensive as his business holdings. "What do you want?"

"To check on you. The pregnancy, the stress of recent revelations—I'm concerned."

"How touching." I stared out the window at the rain-slicked streets of Manhattan. "Your concern comes a bit late, don't you think? After decades of lies?"

Callum sighed, a rare display of weariness. "I've never lied to you, Clarette. I simply waited for the right time to reveal the truth."

"And fucking me before telling me I was your niece—was that good timing?"

His jaw tightened. "You're not my blood. Vincent and I were step-brothers, sharing a father but different mothers. There is no biological relation between us."

This was new information, but it changed nothing. "The deception remains the same."

"Perhaps." He shifted, turning more fully toward me. "But my offer still stands. Marry me. Combine your fifteen percent with my thirty, and we control the company outright. You take your rightful place as a Monette, and we build a dynasty together."

Advertisement

I laughed, the sound hollow even to my own ears. "You still don't understand, do you? I don't want to build anything with you. I want to burn your world to the ground."

"Vengeance is a poor foundation for a legacy," he said quietly. "Trust me on this."

Before I could respond, my phone rang—an unknown number. I almost declined it, but something made me answer.

"Ms. Vervain?" A woman's voice, accented, elderly. "My name is Sister Agnes. I was given your number by the investigator you hired."

I straightened, instantly alert. "Yes, Sister Agnes. Thank you for calling."

"You asked about a woman who delivered a baby to our convent thirty years ago. A baby girl."

Callum watched me intently, clearly able to hear both sides of the conversation.

"Yes," I confirmed. "Do you remember her?"

"I remember." The nun's voice softened. "She was young, terrified. Covered in blood—her own, I think. She begged us to take the child, to hide her. She kept saying 'they want to kill my daughter' and 'he is the devil.'"

My heart raced. "This woman—did she give a name?"

"Vivienne. No surname. But she left something with the baby. A piece of cloth with initials: V.M."

Beside me, Callum had gone utterly still.

"Sister Agnes, is there any way I could meet with you? Today, if possible?"

We arranged a meeting at the convent upstate, and I ended the call, my mind racing. Vivienne hadn't abandoned me out of shame or fear of scandal. She'd been running from something—or someone.

"Change of plans," I told the driver. "Take me to the heliport."

"Clarette," Callum's voice held a warning note. "Whatever you're thinking—"

"She's alive, isn't she?" I interrupted, turning to face him. "Vivienne. My mother. She didn't give me away and continue her perfect life as Mrs. Monette. She ran."

Callum's expression gave nothing away, but his silence was confirmation enough.

"Who is buried in the grave next to my supposed mother?" I pressed. "If not Vivienne, then who?"

"A Jane Doe," he admitted finally. "A woman of similar build and coloring who died in a car accident the same week Vivienne disappeared. Dental records were... adjusted."

The casual admission of such elaborate deception should have shocked me. Instead, I felt a strange calm settling over me. "You've maintained for thirty years that your wife died in childbirth. You held a funeral. You put another woman in the ground. All to hide the fact that Vivienne fled from you."

"She took something that belonged to me," Callum said, his voice dangerously soft. "You."

"I belonged to no one."

"You were a Monette. My brother's blood. The last of his line." His hand moved to cover mine, his touch electric despite everything. "Do you understand what that means? Vincent was the true visionary. I built the company using his blueprint, his genius. And you—you carry that same brilliance."

I pulled my hand away. "Is that why you've been obsessed with controlling me? Because you think I inherited some mad genius gene?"

"Not mad," Callum corrected. "Exceptional. Different. Capable of seeing patterns others miss." His eyes searched mine. "Tell me you don't feel it. The way your mind works differently than others. The intuitive leaps you make in business that leave everyone else scrambling to catch up."

I couldn't deny it. My meteoric rise in the business world had been fueled by an almost supernatural ability to predict market trends, to see connections invisible to others. I'd attributed it to hard work and intelligence, but there had always been something more—something I couldn't quite explain.

"Vivienne saw it in you from birth," Callum continued. "The same qualities that drew her to Vincent. It terrified her. She believed Vincent's brilliance was inseparable from his instability. She feared what you might become."

"So she ran to protect me from you," I concluded. "From what you might do to shape me into a weapon for your arsenal."

Callum's laugh held no humor. "Is that the story you're constructing? Poor, frightened mother fleeing the evil patriarch?" He shook his head. "Vivienne ran because she knew I would raise you as a Monette—with all the privilege and power that entails. She wanted to keep you small, contained. Safe, yes, but ordinary."

"And you found me anyway."

"Not until you were already extraordinary on your own terms." His voice held something like pride. "By then, I knew intervention was unnecessary. You had already become what you were meant to be."

The car slowed as we approached the heliport. Outside, one of Callum's private helicopters waited, rotors already spinning.

"I'm going alone," I said firmly.

"No." His hand gripped my wrist, not painfully but with unmistakable strength. "If Vivienne is alive, if she's been hiding all these years, there are implications beyond your personal journey of discovery. Corporate implications. Legal implications."

"I don't care about your corporate concerns."

"You should. Fifteen percent of them are now yours." His grip loosened, becoming almost a caress. "Let me come with you. Let me face whatever truth awaits us together."

I studied him—this man who had manipulated my entire life, who had loved my false mother and desired me, who had built an empire on deception yet spoke of legacy with religious fervor. In his eyes, I saw something I rarely witnessed there: uncertainty. Perhaps even fear.

Good. Let him be afraid.

"Fine," I conceded. "But understand this: whatever we find, whoever she is to me, I will not let you hurt her. Not again."

As we boarded the helicopter, the storm clouds parting to reveal a streak of sunlight, I felt a strange sense of destiny unfolding. I had spent my life not knowing who I truly was. Now, as we rose above the Manhattan skyline toward a truth three decades in hiding, I realized that whoever I had been before—Clarette Vervain, Clarette Monette, daughter, wife, mistress—was gone.

In her place was someone new. Someone forged in lies but determined to wield truth like a weapon.

Someone worthy of the name Monette, but not in the way Callum had intended.