Chapter 3 - The Crimson Mark
I pulled back slightly, my body shaking violently from shock, pain, and absolute confusion. "No... no, my name is Amara... Amara Johnson. You have the wrong person—"
"It isn't a mistake," Eleanor wept, finally reaching us with the help of two terrified nurses. She sank onto her knees right there on the wet marble, ignoring the wine ruining her silk robes. She took my hands in her warm, frail fingers, weeping openly as she looked into my face. "Look at your eyes, child. You have your mother’s emerald eyes. You have the Hastings mark—a genetic anomaly that has appeared in every first-born daughter of our bloodline for four generations!"
"This is ridiculous!" Victoria shrieked, her voice turning shrill as she realized the entire room was watching her lose control. "She’s a imposter! A scam artist who probably looked up old family records or got a tattoo to infiltrate this house! Daniel, don't touch her! She's filthy!"
Daniel didn't look at Victoria. He slowly stood up from the floor, his massive six-foot-two frame towering over his fiancée. The gentleness he had shown me evaporated in an instant, replaced by a cold, murderous rage that made the air in the room drop ten degrees.
He stepped directly into Victoria’s space. Without saying a word, he reached out and snatched the antique riding crop out of her hands, snapping the thick leather and steel rod over his knee like a twig before tossing the pieces at her feet.
"If you ever touch my sister again," Daniel whispered, his voice dangerously low, "I will destroy everything your family owns before the sun rises tomorrow."
Victoria recoiled, her face turning pale as paper. "Daniel... you can't believe this! Your sister died in that kidnapping twenty years ago! The police found her coat in the river!"
"They found a coat," Eleanor said fiercely, standing tall with her cane. "They never found a body. And now my granddaughter is home."
My head was spinning. The pain in my back was a dull, thumping roar, and the world was beginning to blur around the edges. Hastings? Lily? Kidnapping?
"My brother..." I gasped, grabbing the lapel of Daniel's tuxedo jacket with my bloody fingers. "Please... my brother Leo... he’s in the ICU... I need to work... I need the money for his surgery..."
Daniel’s eyes softened instantly as he looked down at me. He swept his arms beneath my knees and back, lifting me effortlessly into his chest. I winced as the movement pulled at the torn skin on my back, but his hold was rock-solid.
"Your brother is going to get his surgery, Amara," Daniel said firmly, his eyes locking onto mine with absolute conviction. "You are never going to worry about money, medical bills, or being hurt ever again. I swear it to you."
He turned his back on Victoria and the three hundred silent guests, carrying me out of the ballroom toward the private residential wing of the estate.
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Behind us, Victoria stood frozen, her pearl-white dress stained with crimson wine, her hands trembling as she watched her empire crumble in a single night.
"Security!" Victoria suddenly yelled, her voice trembling with desperation as she grabbed her phone from her purse. "Call my father! Call him right now!"
