Chapter 8
The haunting, deeply emotional notes of the Moonlight Sonata drifted faintly into the quiet corridors of the penthouse.
Harriet had just reached the door of her guest room. She stopped dead in her tracks. Her hand gripped the wooden doorframe so hard her knuckles turned white.
For years, the relentless stress and trauma of her past had left her in a state of perpetual, agonizing hyper-vigilance. It was a psychological burning that never stopped, keeping her muscles constantly locked in defense.
But right now, as the profound sorrow of the piano notes washed over her, the mental burning eased.
Harriet closed her eyes. The sheer, devastating beauty of the performance broke through her ironclad defenses. The pure artistic resonance wrapped around her frayed nerves like a cold compress. Her brow smoothed out, a look of profound shock crossing her usually stoic face as she realized a spoiled socialite was capable of such raw, heartbreaking expression.
Two corridors away, in the sunlit guest room, Jorden was drowning.
He was thrashing on the King-size bed, trapped in a violent PTSD nightmare. His t-shirt was soaked in cold sweat. His hands gripped the silk sheets, tearing at the fabric as his mind dragged him back to the metal operating tables of the Utopia labs.
Then, the faint, melancholic melody reached him.
The moment the hauntingly beautiful music hit his ears, the sheer emotional gravity of the notes anchored his spiraling mind. The rigid, defensive tension in his limbs slowly began to uncoil. His rapid, shallow breathing hitched, then gradually deepened into a steady rhythm as the melancholic chords grounded him in reality. The terrifying red haze behind his eyelids dissolved, washed away by the sorrowful tune.
Jorden's eyes snapped open.
He lay perfectly still, staring at the ceiling. He turned his head slowly toward the wall, looking in the direction of the music room. His chest heaved once, his dark eyes wide with an overwhelming shock and a desperate, almost terrifying hope. The revelation was too massive to accept blindly, causing every muscle in his body to pull tight as he began to violently reevaluate everything he knew about this supposed monster.
In the music room, Diana hit the final chord. Exhaustion crashed over her like a physical wave. She rested her head against the wooden music stand and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Hours later.
The morning sun pierced through the Manhattan smog, casting sharp shadows across the piano keys.
Diana's iPhone, resting on the piano lid, erupted.
The shrill, aggressive ringtone shattered the quiet. It vibrated violently against the wood.
Diana jolted awake, her heart leaping into her throat. She rubbed her numb arm and snatched the phone.
"Hello?"
"What the hell did you do?!"
The hysterical scream of Amanda, the family's Chief PR Director, nearly blew out Diana's eardrum.
"Open Twitter! Right now!" Amanda yelled.
Diana's stomach plummeted. She hung up, her thumb quickly tapping the blue bird icon.
There it was. The number one trending topic in the United States, marked with a glaring red tag:
McConnellFakeHeiress
Diana clicked the hashtag. The top post was an audio file. It was a crystal-clear recording of her voice on the terrace yesterday: "I am the fake. I am the one who was switched at birth."
The account was anonymous. "TruthSeekerNYC."
The comments were a bloodbath. Thousands of people were tearing her apart, calling her a parasite, a thief, a fraud. Someone had already photoshopped her face onto a rat eating out of a diamond bowl.
Worse, the official Wall Street Journal account had just retweeted the audio with a caption questioning the integrity of the McConnell Group's corporate governance.
Diana quickly tapped open her news aggregator app. The top financial headline screamed at her in bold, unforgiving letters: McConnell Group Faces Catastrophic Trust Crisis Amidst Heiress Scandal; Shares Expected to Plummet at Opening Bell. She didn't need to see the exact numbers to know millions of dollars were about to be wiped out in minutes.
Diana stared at the glaring headline, her jaw clenched tight. This wasn't just Candice posting a video. This was a coordinated, heavily funded smear campaign.
Heavy footsteps thudded outside the music room. The door swung open.
The butler stood there, his face ashen.
"Miss Diana," he said, his voice shaking. "Mr. McConnell is flying back from London. He is furious."
The butler swallowed hard. "And... Mrs. Vance and her son are in the living room. They are demanding to see you immediately."
Diana's fingers tightened around her phone. The Vance family. Her fiancé.
The executioners had arrived.
She stood up, smoothing the wrinkles out of her skirt. Her eyes hardened into cold chips of ice. She walked out the door.
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