For several seconds, Sebastian said nothing.

His eyes remained fixed on Theodore’s arm around my waist.

Then he laughed.

It was the same cold laugh he used five years ago whenever he believed I was trying to provoke him.

“Eight men?”

“Yes.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“I don’t particularly care what you believe.”

Chloe recovered first.

She looked Theodore up and down before smiling.

“Mr. Wen, you probably don’t know Helena very well.”

Theodore raised an eyebrow.

“I know her quite well.”

“She grew up dependent on the Qin family.”

Chloe stepped closer.

“She has no parents, no inheritance, no family connections. Sebastian’s mother took her in out of pity.”

Theodore’s smile disappeared.

“Interesting.”

Chloe mistook his expression for doubt.

“She has always dreamed of becoming Mrs. Qin.”

“Chloe,” Sebastian warned.

But she continued.

“Maybe she told you some dramatic story in Belvaria, but—”

“Enough.”

The voice came from behind us.

Everyone turned.

An elderly man had entered the ballroom.

Conversations stopped almost instantly.

Even Sebastian’s expression changed.

Chairman Arthur Hale.

The patriarch of one of the oldest families in the north.

He walked directly toward me.

Then, in front of everyone, he opened his arms.

“My child.”

I had prepared myself for this moment.

I still nearly cried.

“Grandfather.”

The room erupted in whispers.

Chloe’s face went blank.

Sebastian didn’t move.

Arthur held my shoulders and looked at me for several seconds.

“Five years.”

His voice trembled.

“Five years after we found you, and you still made this old man wait until today to bring you home.”

“I wanted to return on my own terms.”

“I know.”

He touched my hair gently.

“You always were your mother’s daughter.”

Sebastian finally spoke.

“Chairman Hale… what does this mean?”

Arthur turned toward him.

His warmth vanished.

“You require an explanation about my granddaughter?”

“Granddaughter?”

Sebastian repeated the word as if he didn’t understand it.

Arthur looked almost offended.

“Helena Hale. My eldest daughter’s only child.”

Chloe shook her head immediately.

“Impossible.”

Nobody answered her.

She turned to Sebastian.

“You said she was an orphan.”

Sebastian was staring at me.

“She was.”

“No,” Theodore said calmly. “She was missing.”

The truth was simpler than the rumors that followed.

When I was young, an accident separated me from my biological family.

By the time records were corrected, I had already been taken into the Qin household.

Madam Eleanor knew pieces of the truth, but not enough to locate the Hales.

Years later, during my exile in Belvaria, a medical emergency led to a genetic match.

The family I thought no longer existed found me.

And for the first time, I discovered what it felt like to have people search for me instead of expecting me to chase them.

Sebastian took one step forward.

“You knew?”

“For five years.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

I almost smiled.

“You sent me away.”

His jaw tightened.

“I expected you to come back.”

“I know.”

“That was always the arrangement.”

“Your arrangement.”

Silence.

Sebastian looked toward Arthur.

Then Theodore.

Then back at me.

Something uncomfortable appeared in his eyes.

Not yet regret.

Something closer to disbelief.

He had spent five years believing I was being punished.

In reality, those five years had given me a life beyond him.

Then seven men entered the ballroom.

Chloe stared.

Sebastian’s expression became almost frightening.

I couldn’t help myself.

“There.”

I gestured toward them.

“The other seven.”

Sebastian’s hand tightened.

Theodore started laughing.

One of the men approached and hugged me.

“Little sister.”

Sebastian froze.

Another ruffled my hair.

“You caused trouble before we even arrived?”

“They’re your…”

“My cousins,” I said.

I pointed toward Theodore.

“And Theodore is practically my brother.”

Theodore sighed dramatically.

“After everything I’ve done for you, I get demoted to brother?”

“You’ll survive.”

The tension around me dissolved into laughter.

Everyone except Sebastian.

His face was unreadable.

“You deliberately misled me.”

I looked at him.

“Did that hurt?”

He didn’t answer.

“Interesting.”

I moved closer.

“Five years ago you told me Chloe wouldn’t be the last woman in your life. You expected me to accept a second and a third.”

His expression hardened.

“I was angry.”

“You weren’t.”

I shook my head.

“You were certain.”

That was worse.

“You believed I could never leave because I had nowhere else to go.”

For once, Sebastian had no response.

Chloe suddenly grabbed his arm.

“Why are you listening to her?”

She looked at me.

“So what if she’s a Hale? Sebastian doesn’t need her.”

Arthur laughed quietly.

Chloe’s face reddened.

“What?”

Arthur looked toward Sebastian.

“The Qin family has requested a partnership with Hale Industries four times during the last three years.”

Sebastian’s expression changed.

“And we rejected it four times,” Arthur continued.

“Why?”

Arthur glanced at me.

“Because my granddaughter asked me to.”

The ballroom went silent again.

Sebastian stared at me.

“You?”

“Yes.”

His voice dropped.

“You interfered with my company?”

“No.”

I lifted my glass from the nearby table.

“I simply refused to help it.”

There was a difference.

Sebastian had once believed marriage to him was the greatest opportunity my life could offer.

Now he was discovering that access to my family was an opportunity his company had repeatedly requested.

Chloe’s composure finally cracked.

“You’re taking revenge.”

I looked at her.

“No.”

That answer surprised her.

“Revenge would mean I spent five years thinking about you.”

I took a sip.

“I didn’t.”

Sebastian flinched.

Before anyone could respond, the ballroom doors opened again.

This time, two attorneys entered.

Arthur’s expression became serious.

One handed him a folder.

“Chairman Hale, the investigation is complete.”

My smile disappeared.

I knew what that meant.

Five years earlier, when my family found me, they had begun investigating how I ended up separated from them.

At first, everyone believed it had been an accident.

It wasn’t.

The attorney placed an old photograph on the table.

Madam Eleanor Qin.

Sebastian’s mother.

Beside her stood my biological mother.

Sebastian stared at it.

“They knew each other?”

“Yes,” I said.

His face changed.

“But my mother told me she found you through a charity.”

“That was a lie.”

The attorney opened the folder.

Twenty years earlier, Eleanor had helped my mother during a dangerous family dispute.

After the accident that separated me from the Hales, Eleanor found me first.

She intended to return me.

Then circumstances changed.

Threats were made.

Records disappeared.

And Eleanor kept me hidden under another identity.

Sebastian looked shaken.

“My mother kidnapped you?”

“No.”

I answered immediately.

“She protected me.”

The attorney nodded.

“Mrs. Qin appears to have believed returning Helena at that time would put her in danger.”

Arthur’s eyes darkened.

“She saved my granddaughter.”

I remembered Eleanor’s final days.

Her hand holding mine.

Her strange request.

“Whatever happens, don’t hate Sebastian.”

For years, I thought she simply wanted me to marry her son.

Now I understood there had been more behind those words.

Sebastian looked at me.

“Is that why my mother wanted us married?”

“I don’t know.”

The attorney hesitated.

“Actually, we may now know.”

He removed another document.

It was Eleanor’s will.

Not the version Sebastian knew.

An earlier sealed addendum.

The attorney read:

“If Helena’s identity is ever restored, all shares I personally hold in Qin Holdings are to be returned to the Hale family’s designated heir.”

Sebastian went still.

Chloe whispered:

“How many shares?”

The attorney looked at her.

“Twenty-two percent.”

The room exploded into murmurs.

Sebastian’s face drained of color.

Twenty-two percent was enough to change the balance of power inside Qin Holdings.

And legally, those shares now belonged to me.

But there was another page.

The attorney turned it over.

His expression became strange.

“Miss Hale, there’s a personal letter attached.”

I took it.

Eleanor’s handwriting covered the page.

My eyes moved across the lines.

Then stopped.

Sebastian noticed.

“What does it say?”

I couldn’t answer immediately.

Because Eleanor had written something that changed everything I thought I knew about that canceled wedding.

“Helena, if Sebastian ever humiliates you or uses your dependence on us to control you, leave him.”

My throat tightened.

Sebastian stepped closer.

I continued reading silently.

“Do not marry him because of the promise you made me.”

Then came the final sentence.

“If my son becomes the kind of man his father was, you owe me only one thing.”

I looked up at Sebastian.

His face had become pale.

“What?”

I folded the letter.

“To never go back to you.”

For the first time in five years, Sebastian had nothing to command.

Nothing to threaten.

Nothing he could take away.

And nothing I needed from him.

I turned toward my grandfather.

“Let’s go home.”

Arthur smiled.

Sebastian suddenly caught up with me.

“Helena.”

I stopped but didn’t turn.

His voice was different now.

No arrogance.

No order.

Just one question.

“If my mother told you to leave me…”

I looked over my shoulder.

“What?”

His eyes were red.

“Why did she leave you twenty-two percent of my company?”

The attorney behind us answered before I could.

“She didn’t.”

We all turned.

He held up the final document.

“Those shares were never Mrs. Qin’s to give.”

Arthur’s expression changed.

“Explain.”

The attorney looked directly at me.

“They originally belonged to Helena’s mother.”

My heart stopped.

“And according to the corporate records we’ve just recovered, someone transferred them illegally twenty-one years ago.”

Sebastian stared at the papers.

“Who?”

The attorney slowly placed the original transfer certificate on the table.

At the bottom was one signature.

Sebastian’s father.

The man everyone had told me died before I ever entered the Qin household.

Except according to the document in front of us…

he had signed it three years after his supposed death.