Chapter 3

Alex was efficient. It was his defining quality. But this time, the report took a full week to land on Charles' desk.

When it did, Alex's usually impassive face was etched with unusual gravity.

Alex said, adjusting his glasses, "Mr. Sterling, it's... unusual. The account under Ms. Summers' name. The 15 million. It hasn't been touched. Not a single dollar."

Charles' brow furrowed deeply. "Explain. She hasn't used the money?"

"Not only has she not used it, but we can find no trace of her. No credit card purchases, no travel records, no hotel registrations. It's as if she... vanished into thin air."

"Vanished into thin air? What do you mean?" Charles asked in confusion.

A cold, sinking feeling, entirely new and deeply unsettling, coiled in Charles' gut. He wondered how a woman, newly wealthy, could simply vanish.

"Keep digging! Turn Harbor City upside down if you have to—just find her!" he barked.

He needed to see her face. To demand what game she thought she was playing.

The investigation widened, casting a net over every aspect of Nina's life from the past six years. The picture that emerged was nothing like the one Charles had constructed in his mind of a woman living lavishly off his money.

Instead, she rented a cramped apartment in a rundown neighborhood, worked shifts at a restaurant, and worked herself to the bone just to raise Anna. Her life was so hard; nearly every cent she earned went straight to her daughter.

Nina enrolled Anna in the most affordable dance classes she could find because the girl loved to move. She would skip meals for a week, surviving on cheap fast food and frozen dinners, just to afford a simple birthday cake for her daughter.

Among the documents was a photo, taken covertly by a neighbor. It showed Nina, her frame heartbreakingly slight, running through a rain-lashed night with a feverish Anna clinging to her back. The desperation in that blurred image was a physical ache.

Charles' finger traced the edge of the photograph unconsciously. His chest felt tight, constricted.

The Nina in the photo was a world apart from the scheming, mercenary woman he remembered—she was like a stranger to him now.

"Mr. Sterling..." Alex struggled to get the words out, his voice heavy. "We also found... Ms. Summers' medical records."

He slid a plain manila folder across the desk.

Charles opened it and saw a stack of hospital reports inside.

His eyes scanned down to the diagnosis line. The words were brutally clear: [Pancreatic Cancer. Stage IV.]

The date of diagnosis was one month before Nina had come to see him.

The world seemed to tilt on its axis. A deafening roar filled Charles' ears.

"Pancreatic cancer... late stage..."

The papers in his hand began to tremble. The memories he had scorned now assaulted him with horrific clarity, replaying in agonizing slow motion.

Her face, pale as parchment. Her body, worn thin to the bone.

Her voice, falsely steady, demanding 15 million with a brutal finality. Her hand, signing the agreement without hesitation.

The way she had walked away, her back so frail it seemed the breeze might break her.

It wasn't about greed. It wasn't about being heartless.

It was a mother on the brink of death, pouring every ounce of her fading strength into clearing a path for her child.

Nina knew Charles hated her, so she had crafted herself into something he would despise even more—the mercenary "gold-digger." It was the only role that would make her motives unquestionable, that would ensure he would take the child without suspicion.

She knew his pride, his arrogance. That Charles only valued what was lost. So she had used her own impending death to bind him to their daughter with chains of permanent guilt.

[I exchanged my death for his guilt towards Anna, and that guilt for Anna's happiness. It was worth it.]

Some random line he'd read somewhere on the document suddenly flashed through his mind, burning into his heart like a poisoned brand.

"Where is she?" The question ripped from a throat gone raw and ragged. "Where is she now?"

Alex met his gaze, his own filled with a bleak pity. "The last facility on her records... it's a hospice. In the southern district."

Charles burst from his office like a man possessed. Ignoring every red light, he drove at a breakneck speed toward the shabby, aging hospice.

The air inside was thick with the mingled scents of antiseptic and decay.

He grabbed a nurse by the arm, his voice a ragged shout. "Nina Summers! A patient named Nina Summers—where is she?"

Startled, the nurse checked the records, her movements hesitant. After a long moment, she replied quietly, "Sir, if you mean Nina Summers... she passed away early yesterday morning."

"Passed away..." Charles thought, feeling hollow inside.

All the strength drained out of him. He leaned against the wall, just barely keeping himself upright.

"Did she... did she leave anything behind?" he asked, clinging to the last shred of hope.

"Oh—yes. She left a box. Said to give it to a Mr. Sterling if he came looking."

Then, the nurse brought over a plain cardboard box.

Charles' hands trembled as he lifted the lid.

Inside, there was no letter, no final words—only a thick stack of receipts.

Every expense from Anna's birth until age five was recorded there. From a pack of diapers to medicine for a cold, each item was carefully noted.

Beneath the receipts lay a child's cookbook. Neat handwritten notes filled the margins: [Anna doesn't like carrots—try blending them into the pasta sauce.]

[She's a bit sensitive to seafood, so don't give her too much.]

[She tends to kick off her blanket when she sleeps, so make sure to check on her a few times during the night.]

His eyes traced each line, drinking in every word.

Line after line, soaked with a mother's deepest love.

On the cookbook's last page, a final message was addressed to him: [Charles, from the muck of my life, you grew into the most precious bloom. So don't look back at the mud. Love her well, the way I taught you.]

A spray of crimson burst from Charles' lips. Darkness swallowed his vision, and consciousness fled.

Now he understood. Nina hadn't refused the money. What she wanted was his remorse.

With that 15 million, she had erased every trace of herself as a mother—and purchased a lifetime of regret and longing for him.

She sacrificed her broken life to buy Anna a ticket to a glorious future.

And he, the arrogant Charles, had been nothing but the fool in her carefully crafted deception—from beginning to end.