Chapter 5 - Claire Learns Who She Really IsClaire's life collapsed in forty-eight hours.
She discovered that Patricia was not her biological mother.
Then she discovered Dean was her brother only by law.
Then she learned that the Whitaker family had hidden her real identity.
Amber didn't want to tell her.
But Evelyn's testimony forced the issue.
Claire confronted Patricia.
“Who am I?”
Patricia stared at her.
“You are my daughter.”
“Biologically?”
Silence.
Claire's voice cracked.
“Biologically?”
“No.”
The word destroyed her.
She stepped backward.
“Who is my mother?”
Patricia said nothing.
“My mother!”
“Rose Reed.”
Claire stared.
“What?”
Patricia finally admitted everything.
The arrangement.
The payment.
The fake adoption.
The forged records.
But she insisted she hadn't known the truth about Rose's death.
Claire didn't believe her.
She left.
She went directly to Amber.
When she arrived, Amber opened the door.
Neither spoke.
Then Claire whispered:
“Are we sisters?”
Amber cried.
“Yes.”
Claire stepped inside.
For several seconds they simply stared at one another.
Then Claire asked:
“Who is my father?”
“Gabriel Marino.”
Claire looked at Vincent.
He stood by the window.
Tears filled his eyes.
“Then…”
“Yes,” Amber said.
“He was your father.”
Claire covered her mouth.
“What happened to him?”
“He was murdered.”
“By whom?”
Amber answered.
“Our grandfather.”
Claire dropped onto the sofa.
“How could they do this?”
Amber sat beside her.
“Because they thought they could.”
Claire laughed through tears.
“They stole my name.”
“Yes.”
“My family.”
“Yes.”
“My mother.”
Amber took her hand.
“But they didn't steal your life.”
Claire looked at her.
“I don't know who I am.”
Amber smiled sadly.
“Neither do I.”
They cried together.
That night, James Marino arrived.
Vincent's younger brother.
He was the one person Amber hadn't met.
He looked at Claire.
Then Amber.
Then Vincent.
“This can't happen.”
Vincent's expression hardened.
“It already did.”
James had been working inside the criminal organization for years.
He admitted that the family had known fragments of the truth.
But they had never known the full arrangement.
James handed Amber a file.
“Your grandfather kept records.”
Inside were bank transfers.
The payment made to Robert Reed.
Names.
Dates.
And one shocking line.
Two children received. One retained. One transferred.
Transferred.
Not adopted.
Transferred.
The second child had been moved again.
Amber looked at Claire.
“You weren't the only baby.”
Claire stared at the file.
“How many?”
James shook his head.
“We don't know.”
Vincent looked sick.
“Your family wasn't just hiding one child.”
He looked at Amber.
“They were moving children.”
Amber felt cold.
“What?”
“Your grandfather and the Whitakers were involved in an underground adoption network.”
The money had come from wealthy clients.
Children were taken.
Identities changed.
Records erased.
Amber looked at Claire.
“You were one of many.”
That night, the sisters slept in the same house for the first time.
They talked until dawn.
About school.
Food.
Music.
Childhood memories.
Small things.
Normal things.
Things neither had ever expected to share.
Claire admitted she had always felt watched.
Amber told her about the strange phone calls.
Claire laughed.
“I thought I was paranoid.”
“You weren't.”
At sunrise, they heard a car outside.
Thomas stepped into the doorway.
“There's a problem.”
“What?”
“The ledger is missing.”
Amber froze.
“Who took it?”
Thomas looked at Vincent.
“Someone inside the Marino family.”
Vincent's face hardened.
James stepped into the room.
“I know who.”
They all turned.
“Who?”
James whispered:
“My mother.”
Patricia Whitaker had disappeared.
She had taken the original evidence.
May you like
And she had one place to go.
Judge Leonard Hale.
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