Chapter 3
My parents brought me home to Columbus after the doctor cleared me to travel.
Home was a small brick house with a squeaky porch, faded blue shutters, and a kitchen that always smelled faintly of coffee and laundry soap.
It was not a mansion.
It was better.
My mother turned the guest room into a nursery before I could stop her. My father painted the walls pale green and refused to tell me how many times he had watched videos about installing cribs.
For two weeks, I tried to recover.
I ate when my mother reminded me.
I walked slowly around the block.
I answered messages from friends who had heard rumors about Connor and me.
But every night, I replayed the same moment.
Connor looking at me.
Victoria smiling behind him.
The door closing.
Then Jake called.
I almost dropped my phone when I saw his name.
For three days, I let it ring.
On the fourth day, he left a voicemail.
“Madison, please call me. I know this is strange. I think someone has been using my name.”
My blood ran cold.
I called him from my mother’s phone.
Jake answered instantly.
“Madison?”
“What do you mean, using your name?”
He sounded nervous.
“About six months ago, someone contacted me through social media. A woman named Chloe said she was writing an article about former college relationships. She asked questions about you and Connor. I told her I didn’t know anything.”
“Did you send her pictures of us?”
“I sent two old photos when we were in college. I thought it was harmless.”
I sat down hard on the edge of the bed.
“Did she ask for your phone number?”
“Yes.”
“Did she ever send messages pretending to be you?”
“No.”
I told him everything.
The pictures.
The screenshots.
Connor throwing me out.
Jake went silent.
Then he said, “Madison, I can prove those messages weren’t mine.”
His phone records showed he had been on a business trip in Denver on dates when the fake messages claimed he had met me in Chicago.
He sent me screenshots of his flight records, hotel bills, and work schedule.
Then he gave me something even more important.
The name Chloe had used online was linked to a private investigator.
A private investigator whose company had been paid by Sterling Family Holdings.
I stared at the invoice Jake forwarded.
The payment was made from an account controlled by Victoria Sterling.
My mother read over my shoulder.
“Oh, sweetheart.”
My father was quieter.
“Call a lawyer,” he said.
The lawyer’s name was Elena Ruiz.
She had gone to law school with my cousin and was known for being sharp, patient, and impossible to intimidate.
She listened without interrupting.
When I finished, she said, “We need to move carefully. The evidence is promising, but Victoria has money and influence. We need proof that connects her directly to the fabrication.”
“I have her note.”
“It helps show motive. It won’t be enough alone.”
“Then what do we do?”
Elena leaned forward.
“First, we protect you. Second, we get a court-ordered paternity test when the babies are born. Third, we investigate the investigator.”
The word paternity hurt.
Not because I doubted Connor was the father.
I did not.
It hurt because I had to prove something that should have been sacred.
That night, an envelope arrived at my parents’ house.
No return address.
My father opened it before I could.
Inside were more photographs.
This time, they were not of me and Jake.
They were of Victoria.
One showed her walking into a private clinic in Chicago.
Another showed her leaving the same building with a man I did not recognize.
On the back of the last photo, someone had written:
Ask Victoria about Daniel.
I stared at the name.
“Who is Daniel?” my mother asked.
I did not know.
But I was beginning to understand that Victoria’s hatred of me was not just about class.
It was not just about Connor.
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It was about something buried deep in the Sterling family.
Something so dangerous that she had been willing to destroy her own son’s marriage to keep it hidden.
