Knock! Knock!
The knock was too timid for the door it approached, a pale sound against the mahogany.
"Come in," a voice, cold and sharp as splintered ice, finally rang out.
A man entered the office and saw the woman whose name made people in the business world tremble: Ariella Thorn.
Ariella Thorn did not tremble before anyone; people trembled before her. Her icy aura, the precision in her movements, and the piercing intelligence in her eyes made it seem as though she could calculate a person's worth and vulnerabilities in a single, devastating glance.
And yet, as she looked at the private detective, who was holding a sealed brown file with shaking hands, she felt something she hadn't felt since she stood at the top of the business world: Fear.
"Ms. Thorn... you requested the truth," the man's voice cracked.
"I have found out what happened, and this is the evidence," he said as he extended the sealed brown file with a shaky hand.
Ariella collected the brown file and placed it on her desk.
"You can go. I already sent your balance," she said to the private detective, who grinned and bowed quickly before leaving.
Ariella watched him leave, her thoughts drifting to what had brought her to the edge of everything she had ever known. A few days back, she had visited her parents' home only to uncover a deep scheme.
It had been "just another dutiful visit," she thought, when voices drifted from the living room, voices she knew all too well.
"Mom, after I get my hands on the Vaylor's inheritance and Tom becomes successor to Ariella's business, we need to finish off that bitch and her family."
Seraphina's voice, her best friend, her supposed sister, dripped with venom.
"Don't worry, sweetie," Marielle replied, her tone disturbingly cold. "She still thinks she's suffering from a poor health condition, but I've been poisoning her since I swapped you both at birth. When she comes home, I'll make her sign the transfer documents."
"Yes, sis," Tom added proudly. "That bitch always listens to Mom."
Ariella had stood frozen at the door which was slightly opened, each word slicing deeper than the last. Her limbs weakened, but she forced herself to walk away before they could notice her presence.
She drove straight to her penthouse and immediately placed a call to her most trusted and efficient private detective. The instructions were simple: investigate Marielle Thorn and the circumstances surrounding Seraphina's birth. Leave no stone unturned.
Next, the hospital. A discreet visit to Dr. Maxwell, her private physician, for a comprehensive toxicity test.
"Ms. Thorn, I am sorry to inform you, but you have been poisoned, and it has reached the last stage of the effect," Dr. Maxwell had informed her, his expression grim. "It is not like anything I have seen, so we have to take a blood sample from you and perform some tests to see if we can create a cure. I will advise you to get admitted to the hospital for close monitoring."
"Dr. Maxwell, I understand, but you know I am a very busy person," Ariella had replied, her voice eerily calm, the ice-queen persona a shield against panic. "I will clear my schedule quickly by the end of the week so as to get admitted. But please let me know if there is any progress in creating a cure."
The following day, she had gone to her office and called her lawyer. She drafted a will, clear and concise: upon her death, all her immense wealth, every asset, every share, every last cent, was to be liquidated and go to the local orphanage, to be used for charity. She made it absolutely certain those bloodsuckers and ungrateful hypocrites would get nothing.
After pulling her thoughts together, Ariella opened the brown file.
Inside were photos, DNA tests, and hospital records which proved one terrifying truth. Seraphina Vaylor (no, Thorn) was her parents' real child, not her. The information didn't just shock her; it hollowed her out, leaving her an empty shell.
At the end of the brown file was a recording pen, and when played, the drunk voice of her mother no, Marielle Thorn spilled out:
"I swapped Elowen's child with mine. And she deserves it! How can her husband be richer than mine and still be loyal to her?, how can she live a good life while I suffer?. I made sure that bitch raised my child "
The room spun. Then she realized why: no matter what she did, she was never good enough for them. At first, she thought they favored sons over daughters. But then, they were so nice to Seraphina even celebrating her birthdays and every achievement she accomplished but ignored her 's who was their biological daughter. These behaviors, which she didn't understand then, now had a reason. She was not their child.
Ariella swept everything off her desk, the crash of shattering glass echoing through the office.
Her steps were mechanical as she reached for the most expensive bottle in her collection. She moved toward the floor-to-ceiling windows, city lights reflecting around her like uncaring stars.
Her reflection stared back: a woman carved from ice and discipline, wrapped in success.
But her eyes finally reflected what she felt: Pain, Emptiness, A lifetime of asking why. She opened the wine and drank directly from the bottle, gulp after gulp until the city lights blurred.
Then she fell to the ground. For once, that calm mask she had worn since finding out the truth finally shattered. Tears blurred her eyes. She cried for her younger self, for the child who grew up too fast, for the girl who fought alone, for the woman who was never loved. She wailed until a heart-wrenching pain made her cough up dark red blood that slid down her neck.
As her eyes blurred and her heartbeat slowed, she saw a faint electric-blue glow shimmer at her throat.
Her crescent-moon necklace, the one from a travel she barely remembered, the one she had worn every day since, was shining brighter and brighter, the light almost alive.
What she didn't know was that as the light glowed bright it whispered lightly: "Rise again, child of moonlight."
"Maybe this was mercy," a strangely peaceful final thought she had, and then darkness swallowed her.