Chapter 32
My hands shook as I opened the first file folder and saw my mother's name in a private investigator's report from six years ago.
Catherine Chen. Employment records. Bank statements. A photograph I'd never seen—my mother at twenty-three, standing outside Ashford Industries' old building on Boylston Street, wearing a blazer that looked too big for her shoulders.
"Start from the beginning." My voice didn't sound like mine.
Dominic sat on the floor across from me, the cardboard box between us like a barrier. "My father died six years ago. Pancreatic cancer. He had three weeks from diagnosis to—" He stopped. Started again. "He called me to his hospital room on the last day. Told me everything."
I flipped through the pages. Dates, addresses, dead ends. "Everything."
"The patent theft. How he'd paid your mother to verify falsified documents. How James Chen had threatened to go public, and then—" His face hardened. "And then James disappeared. My father made sure of it."
The paper crinkled under my fingers. "Made sure."
"He paid someone to plant drugs in James's apartment. Called in an anonymous tip. James Chen was arrested, lost his job, lost his credibility." Dominic's voice went flat. "He died in a shelter three years later. Liver failure."
I couldn't breathe.
"My father told me all of this like he was confessing to a priest. Like saying it out loud would absolve him." Dominic pulled another folder from the box. "He died four hours later. I hired an investigator the next day."
The new folder was thicker. I opened it to find page after page of search results. James Chen, last known address. James Chen, death certificate. James Chen, next of kin.
"There was no one," Dominic said. "His sister Catherine had disappeared. No children on record. The investigator spent eight months tracking down every lead, every connection." He tapped a yellow sticky note marking a page. "That's when we found Sophia."
I turned to the marked page. A birth certificate. Sophia Marie Chen, mother listed as unknown, father James Chen. Born 1999.
"She would have been your cousin," Dominic said quietly.
Would have been. Past tense. I kept reading.
Foster care records. A group home in Dorchester. And then the death certificate I'd already seen. Sophia Chen, age nineteen, cause of death: accidental overdose.
"I thought that was the end." Dominic reached for another folder, but I grabbed his wrist.
"When did you know it wasn't?"
His pulse jumped under my fingers. "Three years ago. The investigator noticed discrepancies in Sophia's records. Wrong dates, wrong locations. He went back to the foster home, talked to people who'd been there." He pulled his wrist free. Opened the folder himself. "One of the social workers remembered a girl who'd been close to Sophia. A girl who'd run away at sixteen."
My nails dug into my palms.
"It took him another year to find the name change records. Catherine Whitley had filed them when you were seventeen. Legal guardianship transfer, new birth certificate, the whole thing." He spread out three documents side by side. "Your mother changed your name from Sophia Chen to Sloane Whitley. Changed her own name back to Catherine Whitley. Moved you both to South Boston and told everyone you were her daughter, not her niece."
The freckles on my nose felt like they were burning. "That's not—I would remember—"
"You were in foster care from age six to sixteen. Your mother—your aunt—got clean, got a job, got you out. She was trying to protect you." His voice cracked. "From my family."
I shoved the papers away. Stood up. My legs barely held me.
"No, yeah, this is—" I pressed my hands against my eyes. "This is insane. You're telling me my entire life is a lie."
"I am telling you that your family was destroyed by mine." Dominic stayed on the floor, surrounded by evidence. "And I have spent six years trying to find a way to make it right."
"Six years." I dropped my hands. "You found me eight months ago."
the balance tipped in his expression. "Yes."
"So what, you've been watching me? Following me?" My voice pitched higher. "Planning this whole thing?"
"No." He stood slowly. "I have been trying to figure out how to tell you."
"Bullshit." The word came out sharp. "You hired me. You brought me into your house, into your daughter's life, into your bed, and you knew. You knew the whole time who I was."
"I did."
The admission hit like a slap. I'd expected him to deny it, to make excuses. Instead he just stood there, watching me with those careful eyes.
"Get out."
"Sloane—"
"Get the fuck out of my apartment."
He didn't move. "There is more you need to see."
"I don't need to see anything except the door closing behind you."
Dominic bent down. Pulled another folder from the box, this one newer, the pages crisp. He held it out to me.
I didn't take it.
"This is the restitution fund I established eighteen months ago," he said. "Before I found you. Before I knew if I would ever find anyone." He opened the folder himself, showing me page after page of legal documents. "Forty percent of Ashford Industries' annual profits, held in trust for James Chen's heirs. I have been setting aside the money since my father died."
The numbers swam in front of my eyes. Millions. Tens of millions.
"I was going to give it to you regardless," Dominic continued. "Whether you worked for me or not. Whether you—" He stopped. "Whether anything happened between us or not."
I grabbed the folder from his hands. Flipped through it. The dates were right. The signatures were real. The fund had been established before he'd hired me, before he'd kissed me, before any of this.
"So what." I threw the folder back at him. Papers scattered across my floor. "You want a medal? You want me to thank you for giving back what your family stole?"
"I want you to understand that I have been trying to do the right thing."
"The right thing would have been telling me the truth."
"When?" His voice rose for the first time. "When should I have told you? The day I hired you? 'Hello, you are qualified for this position, and also you are the heir to a fortune my father stole from your family'?"
"Yeah, actually. That would have been great."
"You would have run." He stepped over the scattered papers. "You would have disappeared, and I would have lost the only chance I had to make this right."
"That's not your choice to make."
"You are correct. It was not." He stopped three feet away from me. Close enough that I could see the exhaustion in his face, the lines around his eyes that hadn't been there eight months ago. "I made the wrong choice. I kept the truth from you because I was afraid of losing you before I had the chance to—"
"To what? Manipulate me? Make me fall for you so I'd be easier to control?"
"To know you." The words came out quiet. "I hired you because Iris needed you. That part was real. She was struggling, and you were exactly what she needed. But I also hired you because I wanted to understand who you were before I told you that your entire life had been built on my family's crime."
I laughed. It sounded broken. "That tracks. The billionaire wanted to vet the poor girl before handing over her inheritance."
"That is not—" He dragged a hand through his hair. "I wanted to make sure you were safe. That you were stable. That telling you the truth would not destroy you the way it destroyed your uncle."
"How noble."
"It was selfish." His voice went hard. "I was selfish. I wanted time with you. I wanted to see if you were someone I could trust with the truth, and then I wanted—" He stopped. Turned away. "And then I wanted you for reasons that had nothing to do with the patent or the money or making amends."
My heart hammered against my ribs. "Don't."
"I fell in love with you." He said it to my kitchen wall, not to me. "I tried not to. I told myself it was inappropriate, that I was your employer, that I was already lying to you about too many things. But Iris loved you, and you made my house feel like a home, and every time you challenged me or called me on my bullshit or looked at me like I was a person instead of a name, I—"
"Stop." My voice cracked. "Just stop."
He turned back to me. "I am not asking you to forgive me. I am asking you to believe that what I feel for you is real."
"How can I believe anything you say?" I wrapped my arms around myself. "You've been lying to me for eight months."
"I have been lying about who you are. I have not been lying about who I am when I am with you." He took a step closer. "Every conversation we have had, every moment we have shared, every time I have touched you—that was real. That was me, not some character I was playing."
I wanted to believe him. That was the worst part. Standing there in my shitty apartment with evidence of his family's crimes scattered across my floor, I wanted to believe that the man who'd held me in his kitchen, who'd let me see him break down over his daughter, who'd kissed me like I was something precious—I wanted to believe that man was real.
"I need you to leave," I whispered.
His shoulders dropped. "All right."
"Take your files. Take your money. Take all of it and go."
"The files are yours. The money is yours." He moved toward the door, then stopped. "There is one more thing."
"No." I shook my head. "No more things. No more revelations. I can't—"
"The legal documents." He gestured to a manila envelope I hadn't noticed, sitting on top of the box. "You are entitled to forty percent of Ashford Industries based on the original patent agreement. I have had the papers drawn up. You can sign them or not. You can take the money or not. But they are yours."
I stared at the envelope. "Why?"
"Because it is what you are owed." He opened my apartment door. "And because I need you to know that I was always going to give it to you. Regardless of what happened between us."
"I don't want it."
"That is your choice." He stepped into the hallway. "But the offer will remain open. When you are ready."
"I won't be ready."
He looked at me one last time. His expression was unreadable. "I hope that is not true."
Then he was gone.
I stood in my empty apartment for a long time. The files were still scattered across my floor. The box sat in the middle of my living room like a bomb. The manila envelope waited on top.
My hands were shaking again.
I picked up the envelope. It was heavier than I expected. Inside were legal documents, dense with text I couldn't focus on. Percentages. Valuations. Transfer agreements.
And then, in the margin of the third page, handwritten in Dominic's precise script:
Iris asked me today if you were her new mommy. I told her I hoped so. That was three weeks before I kissed you. - D
The paper slipped from my fingers.
I bent down to pick it up, and that's when I saw it. Another folder, smaller than the rest, tucked into the bottom of the box. The tab was labeled in Dominic's handwriting: Contingency - If I Never Find Her.
My pulse roared in my ears.
I pulled the folder out. Opened it.
The first page was a letter, dated four years ago, addressed to "The Heirs of James Chen, if they exist."
I started reading.
The letter detailed everything. The theft. The cover-up. The restitution fund. And then, at the bottom, a paragraph that made my chest tighten:
If you are reading this, it means I have died without finding you. It means I have failed in the only thing that mattered. I cannot undo what my father did. I cannot bring back what you lost. But I can ensure that you receive what is rightfully yours, even if I am not here to see it.
The fund will continue in perpetuity. Forty percent of all profits, held in trust, waiting for you. And if you never come forward, if you never see this letter, then the money will go to organizations that support foster children and families destroyed by corporate greed.
I am sorry. Those words are insufficient, but they are all I have.
Dominic Ashford
I flipped to the next page. It was a copy of his will, dated the same day as the letter. The relevant section was highlighted:
In the event that the heirs of James Chen are not located within my lifetime, the restitution fund shall be distributed as follows...
He'd planned for this. For dying without ever finding me. For making amends even if he never got to see my face or know my name.
My vision blurred.
I turned to the next page and froze.
It was a photograph. Recent, maybe a few months old. Dominic and Iris in the park, the one near his house. Iris was on the swings, her face bright with laughter. Dominic was pushing her, and he was smiling—really smiling, not the careful expression he wore in public.
And in the background, barely visible, was me.
I was sitting on a bench with my sketchbook, not looking at the camera. I hadn't known anyone was taking the picture. Hadn't known Dominic had kept it.
On the back, in his handwriting: The day I knew I was in trouble.
The folder slipped from my hands.
I heard footsteps in the hallway outside my apartment. Heavy, purposeful. Not Dominic's careful tread.
The knock on my door was sharp. Authoritative.
I stood frozen, the photograph still on the floor at my feet.
Another knock. Harder this time.
"Sloane Whitley?" A man's voice, unfamiliar. "I need to speak with you about Ashford Industries."
My blood went cold.
Through the peephole, I could see two men in suits. One of them was holding a briefcase. The other had his hand resting on something at his hip.
A badge.
"Ms. Whitley, we know you're in there. We need to ask you some questions about your relationship with Dominic Ashford and your knowledge of patent fraud."
The photograph crumpled in my fist.
The man knocked again, and this time I heard the sound of a key sliding into my lock.