I WAS CLEANING THE MANSION OF THE RICHEST MAN IN AMERICA AND FOUND A FORBIDDEN PAINTING COVERED WITH A SHEET! WHEN I UNCOVERED IT, I FROZE—IT WAS MY DEAD MOTHER’S FACE! WHAT HE CONFESSED MADE MY LEGS SHAKE AND CHANGED MY DESTINY FOREVER

Shaking off the thought, I climbed the ladder.
A sudden draft swept through—someone had left a window cracked open.

The sheet fluttered.

Just one corner.

Just one second.

But that second ripped open my world.

A gold frame.
And beneath the lifted corner—
a familiar smile.

My smile.

The smile I saw in the mirror every morning, and the one I lost forever the day cancer took her.

My heart stopped.
My fingers went cold.
Everything in me screamed to obey the rules, stay away, don’t lose your job—but my pulse hammered with a truth too wild to ignore.

I had to see it.

Chapter 2: The Forbidden Face

My hands shook as I reached for the cloth. I looked at the doorway—silent. No footsteps. Only the ticking of an old grandfather clock measuring out my doom.

I breathed once.
Twice.

And tugged the sheet down.

It slid to the floor with a whisper—

—and there she was.

My breath vanished.

A breathtaking portrait, painted with masterful strokes… but art wasn’t what made my knees buckle.

It was the woman.

Young, beautiful, glowing with a kind of joy I hadn’t seen since childhood. Dark waves of hair, warm amber eyes—eyes I inherited. She looked maybe twenty-five.

“Mom…” I whispered.

It was Claire Hart.