Chapter 15 - The Truth About Sarah
My mother was found alive in a private clinic outside the city.
Richard had hidden her there as leverage.
She was weak but stable.
When I entered her room, she cried into my shoulder.
Then she confessed something I was not prepared to hear.
She had known Evelyn.
Years earlier, my mother worked as a financial auditor for Sterling Heavy Industries.
She had discovered the same illegal accounts.
Evelyn contacted her for help.
Before they could expose the truth, Margaret threatened my family.
My mother quit and changed our names.
“That’s why Vanessa knew about you,” she said. “She didn’t hire you by accident.”
I stepped back.
“What?”
Vanessa had arranged for me to become Bella’s nanny.
She believed my mother still had copies of the financial records.
Vanessa planned to use me to find them.
But over time, she became jealous of Bella’s trust in me.
She saw me as a threat.
Everything—the job, the mansion, even my first meeting with Arthur—had been manipulated.
I confronted Vanessa in prison.
She admitted it.
“I brought you into that house,” she said.
“Then why threaten my mother?”
“Because you stopped being useful.”
“You hurt Bella.”
Her eyes lowered.
“That wasn’t part of the plan.”
“But you did it anyway.”
“Yes.”
No excuse.
No tears.
Just the truth.
Vanessa gave me the location of one final account belonging to Margaret.
It contained hundreds of millions of dollars stolen from government contracts.
The money was seized.
A victims’ compensation fund was created.
Vanessa received a reduced sentence for cooperating.
Many people were furious.
They believed she had escaped full justice.
Others argued that without her testimony, Margaret and Reeves might have walked free.
I did not know which side was right.
I only knew Bella still woke up from nightmares.
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And no legal deal could undo that.
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