Chapter 1 The Fall of the Fake Heiress

# Chapter 1: The Fall of the Fake Heiress

Tracy Todd stared at the small piece of paper in her hand, the edges crumpled from her tight grip. The black letters seemed to dance before her eyes, mocking her with their clinical precision. DNA Test Results, the header read. And below that, the devastating conclusion: No genetic match to Harold and Eleanor Todd.

The marble floor of the Todd family mansion felt suddenly cold beneath her bare feet. Twenty years of her life—every birthday celebration, every Christmas morning, every family vacation to the French Riviera—all of it had been built on a lie.

"Well?" Eleanor Todd's voice cut through the silence of the grand study. Her adoptive mother—no, not her mother at all—stood with perfect posture by the mahogany desk, not a platinum blonde hair out of place despite the family crisis unfolding. "Do you finally understand what we've been trying to tell you?"

Tracy looked up, her vision blurring slightly. "There must be some mistake. I'm your daughter. I've always been your daughter."

Harold Todd gave a derisive snort from his leather armchair. The Wall Street mogul didn't even bother to look at her, instead swirling the amber liquid in his crystal tumbler. "Science doesn't lie, girl. Though clearly, someone did—twenty years ago."

The grandfather clock in the corner ticked loudly, each second hammering another nail into the coffin of Tracy's former life. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, Manhattan glittered in the evening light, indifferent to her personal apocalypse.

"But why now?" Tracy asked, her voice barely above a whisper. "After all this time, why did you suddenly decide to test my DNA?"

Eleanor's gaze flickered toward Harold, a silent communication passing between them. It was Harold who finally spoke, his tone businesslike and cold.

"Lillian contacted us six months ago. She had suspicions—memories from when she was very young. She insisted on the test."

"Lillian?" Tracy repeated, the name unfamiliar yet somehow ominous.

As if on cue, the double doors to the study swung open. A young woman Tracy's age stepped in, her Louboutin heels clicking assertively against the hardwood. She was beautiful in a calculated way—designer clothes, immaculate makeup, and eyes that assessed everything with cool precision.

"Lillian Todd," she introduced herself with a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "The real Lillian Todd. Though you've been using my name quite comfortably for the past twenty years, haven't you?"

Tracy stood frozen, staring at her doppelgänger. Not in physical appearance—where Tracy was all wild dark curls and olive skin, Lillian was fair and sleek—but in age and bearing. Two women who should have led entirely separate lives, now facing each other in a twisted collision of fate.

"I don't understand," Tracy said, though the horrific truth was beginning to dawn on her. "What are you saying happened?"

Eleanor sighed dramatically. "We were told you were our daughter. The hospital... there must have been some mix-up with the babies."

"Mix-up?" Lillian laughed, the sound like breaking glass. "Let's not sugarcoat it, Mother. Your precious baby was stolen, and this—" she gestured dismissively at Tracy, "—street rat was put in the crib instead."

Tracy felt her knees weaken. "That's not possible. I wouldn't—"

"You wouldn't what?" Lillian cut in. "You wouldn't knowingly infiltrate one of New York's wealthiest families? Of course not. You were an infant. But someone did this deliberately, and you've been reaping the benefits of my birthright for two decades."

Harold cleared his throat. "The how and why don't matter anymore. What matters is setting things right." He finally looked directly at Tracy, his gaze cutting. "The Todd fortune belongs to our blood. To Lillian."

Eleanor moved to stand beside Lillian, placing a maternal hand on her shoulder. "We've already spoken to our lawyers. Everything will be transferred to Lillian's name—the trust fund, the property rights, the company shares."

The room seemed to tilt around Tracy. "And what about me?" she asked, hating how small her voice sounded.

"You'll receive a reasonable settlement," Harold said, as if discussing a minor business transaction. "Enough to start a new life elsewhere. But you need to be out of this house by tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" Tracy gasped. "This is my home! I grew up here! I don't have anywhere else to go!"

"It was never your home," Lillian said softly, her words more devastating for their quiet delivery. "You were just an intruder who didn't know she was trespassing."

Tracy turned to Eleanor, searching for any flicker of maternal affection in the woman who had raised her. "Mom, please. You can't just throw me out. You taught me to ride a bike in the park across the street. You held my hand through my first day of school. That has to mean something."

For a brief moment, Eleanor's perfect façade cracked, a glimpse of conflict visible in her eyes. But then Lillian moved closer to her, a possessive hand on her arm, and Eleanor's expression hardened again.

"I'm sorry, Tracy—or whatever your real name is. But Lillian is our daughter. Our flesh and blood. Surely you can understand that blood matters in a family like ours."

Tracy felt something inside her shatter. "Twenty years," she whispered. "Twenty years, and all it took was a piece of paper to erase me."

"Don't be so dramatic," Harold said dismissively. "You've lived a life of extraordinary privilege most people could only dream of. Private schools, luxury vacations, connections to the best of society. Consider yourself fortunate for the time you had."

Tracy looked down at the test results again, searching for anything to dispute their findings. But the science was irrefutable. The DNA didn't lie. She was not a Todd.

"What about my things?" she asked numbly.

"We'll have the staff pack your essentials," Eleanor said. "The rest—well, most of it was purchased with Todd money, wasn't it?"

Lillian stepped forward, her smile turning predatory. "I might keep some of your clothes. We appear to be about the same size. Though I'll have to get them professionally cleaned first." She wrinkled her nose slightly. "Who knows what kind of common blood they've been touching all these years."

Tracy felt a surge of anger cut through her shock. "You've only known them for what, six months? And you're already playing the perfect daughter?"

"I'm not playing anything," Lillian replied coolly. "I'm claiming what's rightfully mine. The life that was stolen from me."

Harold stood up abruptly. "That's enough. Tracy, Franklin will drive you to a hotel tonight. The lawyers will contact you tomorrow about the settlement. I suggest you take it graciously and disappear. Any attempt to dispute this would be... inadvisable."

"You'd sue me?" Tracy asked incredulously. "After everything, you'd actually take legal action against me?"

"We'd destroy you," Lillian corrected with a smile. "The Todds protect their own. And you're not one of us."

Eleanor walked over to her desk and retrieved an envelope. "Here's enough cash to tide you over for a few days. Please don't make this more difficult than it needs to be."

Tracy stared at the envelope but didn't take it. "Where was I from, then? If I'm not your daughter, whose am I? Do you know anything about my real family?"

A look passed between Harold and Eleanor, too quick for Tracy to interpret.

"The past doesn't matter," Harold said firmly. "What matters is moving forward. Separately."

Tracy realized with sickening clarity that they knew more than they were telling her. But she also knew that the formidable wall of Todd influence and money had just slammed down between her and any answers she might seek.

With trembling fingers, she finally accepted the envelope. "I'll need some time to pack a few things."

"Of course," Eleanor said, relief evident in her voice. "Franklin will wait for you in the car."

Tracy turned to leave, her mind reeling with the enormity of what had just happened. As she reached the door, Lillian called out to her.

"Tracy?"

She paused, not turning around.

"You know what they say about blood being thicker than water?" Lillian's voice was honey-sweet with malice. "Remember that when you're back in whatever gutter you came from. A beggar should crawl back to the slums where she belongs."

Tracy's hand tightened on the doorknob. She wanted to scream, to rage against the injustice of it all. But what would be the point? In the world of the ultra-wealthy, money and bloodlines trumped everything—even twenty years of family bonds.

Instead, she straightened her shoulders and walked out without another word, her footsteps echoing in the marble hallway of what had been her home just hours earlier.

In her bedroom—no, not her bedroom anymore—Tracy moved mechanically, selecting only what she could prove was truly hers: the vintage camera she had bought with her own modeling earnings, the leather journal filled with her private thoughts, a few pieces of jewelry that had been gifts from friends rather than family. Everything else—the designer wardrobe, the tech gadgets, even the books she had lovingly collected—she left behind, unable to bear Lillian's accusations of theft on top of everything else.

As she zipped up her pathetically small suitcase, her phone buzzed with a notification. It was an alert from a society gossip account she followed: "BREAKING: DNA SCANDAL ROCKS TODD FAMILY - FAKE HEIRESS EXPOSED!"

Tracy's blood ran cold. They had already leaked the story. By morning, all of Manhattan's elite would know. Her friends, her college classmates, even the modeling agencies she occasionally worked with—everyone would be talking about her disgrace.

Below the headline was a photo of Lillian, elegantly dressed in what appeared to be a Todd family event from earlier in the day, with the caption: "The real Todd heiress reclaims her birthright after twenty-year mystery."

Comments were already flooding in, the digital vultures circling:

"OMG, always thought there was something off about Tracy!"

"Wonder if the fake knew all along?"

"GIRL BETTER WATCH HER BACK... AND HER FIANCE."

The last comment made Tracy pause. Fiancé? What fiancé?

She scrolled through the article, her heart pounding harder with each paragraph, until she reached the line that felt like a physical blow:

"Sources close to the family reveal that the newly-discovered heiress, Lillian Todd, is already embracing her rightful position in society, including her recent engagement to Wall Street wunderkind and billionaire venture capitalist, Phil Tyler."

Phil Tyler. The name seemed to hang in the air before her. Even Tracy knew of him—everyone did. The financial prodigy who had made his first billion before thirty, notorious for his ruthless business tactics and magnetic charm. He was exactly the kind of man the Todds would choose for their daughter.

A memory surfaced: Harold, three months ago, mentioning a business dinner with "young Tyler." Had they been planning this all along? Setting up Lillian with New York's most eligible bachelor while simultaneously preparing to cast Tracy out?

She closed the article and caught her reflection in the mirror across the room. The woman who stared back was a stranger—pale, hollow-eyed, unmoored. For twenty years, she had been Tracy Todd: Spence School graduate, Columbia student, occasional model, heiress to the Todd fortune. Now who was she?

Franklin knocked softly on the door. "Miss... the car is ready whenever you are."

Tracy took one last look around the room that had been her sanctuary for twenty years. Then she picked up her suitcase and walked out without looking back.

As the Town Car pulled away from the mansion, Tracy watched the windows of the grand house grow smaller in the distance. In one of them, she could see Lillian's silhouette, watching her departure like a queen surveying the banishment of a rival.

"Where to, Miss?" Franklin asked, his eyes meeting hers briefly in the rearview mirror. She could see pity there, and it stung worse than Lillian's cruelty.

Tracy looked down at her phone, still open to the article about Lillian and Phil Tyler. A plan—desperate and possibly insane—began to form in her mind.

"The Plaza, please," she said, her voice steadier than she felt. If the Todds thought she would disappear quietly into obscurity, they didn't know her at all. DNA might not make her a Todd by blood, but twenty years in that house had taught her something valuable: when you're pushed to the edge, you don't fall—you fight.

As the car merged into the Manhattan traffic, Tracy made a silent vow. She would discover who she really was. She would uncover the truth about how she ended up with the Todds. And maybe, just maybe, she would find a way to take back what had been stolen from her.

Starting with a visit to the penthouse of one Phil Tyler.