The emptiness of the penthouse echoed around Victor like a physical cage.
He remained on the floor of Charlotte’s stripped bedroom for over an hour, clutching the handwritten note until the paper was wrinkled and torn. The silence was absolute, save for the faint hum of the city traffic hundreds of feet below.
His phone began to vibrate violently against the hardwood floor.
Victor snatched it up. He thought—he hoped—it might be Penelope calling him back. Instead, the caller ID flashed Naomi Prescott.
He answered, his voice thick with a cold, venomous fury. “What do you want?”
“Victor, please!” Naomi’s voice was hysterical, punctuated by the sound of muffled crying. “My landlord is threatening to evict me! Your father’s company lawyers already blocked my corporate card, and I have no money! You have to help me—”
“Help you?” Victor let out a harsh, broken laugh that sounded borderline manic. “You lied to me for months. You passed off another man’s child as an heir to the Reynolds name, and you expect me to help you?”
“It was a mistake! I was scared—”
“Lose my number, Naomi,” Victor snarled. “If you ever contact me again, I will make sure my family’s legal team destroys every single aspect of your life.”
He hung up and blocked her number instantly.
He staggered to his feet, walking out to the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the city skyline. His chest felt tight, burning with a suffocating panic. He dialed his father’s office.
“Dad,” Victor rasped the second Walter picked up. “She’s gone. She left the country. The penthouse is empty.”
There was a long, heavy pause on the other end of the line. When Walter spoke, his voice carried a terrifying, icy disappointment.
“I know,” Walter said flatly. “Richard just called me. It turns out your ex-wife didn’t just walk away with custody, Victor. Thirty minutes before you signed those papers, her family’s private trust fully liquidated twelve million dollars in offshore assets. She didn’t want the penthouse. She didn’t want the SUV. She didn’t need them.”
Victor’s breath caught in his throat. “Twelve… twelve million dollars?”
“Your mother is beside herself, and the board of directors is already questioning your judgment after the scandal with Naomi leaked to the executive branch,” Walter continued, his voice like iron. “You have completely dismantled the Reynolds reputation in less than twenty-four hours. Fix this, Victor. Find your daughters, or consider yourself finished at Hail & Reynolds Engineering.”
The line went dead.
Meanwhile, six thousand miles away, the private car had just passed through the wrought-iron gates of a sprawling, magnificent estate in the English countryside just outside London.
The vehicle smoothly came to a halt in front of a grand limestone manor.
“Are we visiting a castle, Mom?” five-year-old Charlotte asked wide-eyed, pressing her face against the car window.
I smiled, feeling a warmth in my chest I hadn’t felt in over a decade. “Something even better, sweetheart. This is home.”
The car door opened, and my uncle—Sir Arthur Vance, a distinguished man with kind eyes and a welcoming smile—was already standing on the cobblestone steps waiting for us.
“Penelope, my dear,” Arthur said, stepping forward to open my door and offering a gentle hand. “Welcome home.”
As Abigail and Charlotte stepped out into the crisp London air, looking around in wonder at the vast gardens and the grand house, I took a deep, steady breath of absolute freedom.
Victor had spent years treating us as afterthoughts while he chased prestige, power, and a false legacy built on sand. But as I looked at my daughters laughing in the afternoon sun, I knew one thing for certain:
The Reynolds family had finally lost their true heirs. And my real life was only just beginning.
