Chapter 6 - Ethan’s First NameEthan demanded his complete adoption file.
The court initially refused because Walter’s attorneys had sealed it under a medical-privacy order. Mara obtained a warrant after showing the connection to Project Starling.
The file listed Ethan’s birth name as Nathan Cole.
Mother: Rebecca Cole.
Father: Unknown.
Claire stared at the page.
Rebecca was Anna’s mother.
If the record was genuine, Ethan and Anna were siblings.
The birth date created another contradiction.
Rebecca supposedly gave birth to Anna on the night Claire disappeared.
Ethan had been born fourteen months later.
Judith said Rebecca disappeared after trying to reclaim Anna. She may have become pregnant again while hiding or under coercion.
Ethan sat inside Victoria’s library holding the photograph of a young woman with dark hair and frightened eyes.
“She looks like me.”
Victoria approached but stopped before touching him.
“I didn’t know.”
“That sentence is becoming the family motto.”
“I believed your mother surrendered you.”
“She tried to get Anna back. Why would she surrender me?”
Victoria had no answer.
The adoption file contained temporary guardianship papers. Rebecca authorized six weeks of foster care while receiving treatment for severe postpartum trauma.
Walter converted the temporary placement into permanent adoption.
Victoria and Charles never saw the original document.
They believed the biological mother abandoned Ethan.
Walter placed him inside their home to quiet Victoria’s search for Amelia.
Ethan had been used as grief medicine.
He left the library and walked toward the estate garden.
Claire followed.
“I don’t know what I am supposed to feel,” he said.
“You don’t have to select one emotion.”
“I love the woman who raised me. She also stopped searching for you because I arrived.”
“You were a baby.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because you keep trying to take responsibility for adults.”
Ethan looked toward the white roses lining the path.
“Did Walter arrange us to meet?”
“Probably.”
“Does that make what we have false?”
Claire thought of their first dinner, the proposal beneath the winter lights, and the mornings when Ethan brought coffee without being asked.
“No. But it means we need to know what we choose when no one is pushing.”
The wedding remained suspended.
They returned the marriage license unsigned.
Ethan placed the rings inside a locked drawer.
Not discarded.
Not worn.
Waiting without promise.
Mara located Rebecca Cole’s last known medical record. She entered a private psychiatric facility after challenging Ethan’s adoption. Dr. Helena Voss diagnosed her with delusions about stolen children.
The facility closed eighteen years earlier.
Rebecca’s discharge address was missing.
A nurse remembered another woman visiting her.
Margaret Vale.
Victoria’s mother.
Margaret supposedly died eleven years ago.
The nurse said Margaret offered Rebecca money and new identities for both children if she stopped contacting the Ashfords.
Rebecca refused.
Three days later, she vanished.
Ethan searched old family photographs.
At age seven, he wore a silver bracelet with a longer star point facing north.
He did not remember it.
Victoria remembered Walter presenting it during a foundation ceremony.
The bracelet disappeared after one week.
The third bracelet.
The Bridge key.
A hidden file inside Walter’s abandoned office showed the bracelet had been stored at the Ashford estate until the morning of the wedding.
Someone removed it before the ceremony.
Security footage showed Lydia Stone, the wedding planner, entering Walter’s office.
Lydia had supervised the flowers, altar positions, lighting, and gown delivery.
She disappeared after the wedding.
Claire remembered Lydia insisting the lace sleeve remain high over her shoulder.
She also placed Victoria in the front pew close enough to reach the bride.
Everything had been arranged for the tear.
Mara searched Lydia’s records.
The name was false.
Her passport photograph matched a woman appearing beside Margaret Vale in a private clinic photograph.
Lydia had spent years working with Victoria’s supposedly dead mother.
Before they could trace her, Ethan received a package.
Inside was the missing north-star bracelet.
A note read:
The bridge is ready. The heir must decide whether love is stronger than design.
May you like
Beneath the bracelet was a key to the sealed lower floor of St. Catherine’s old tower.
👉 Ethan learned he was Anna’s brother and a child placed inside Victoria’s home to end her search, while the returned Bridge bracelet invited him and Claire into Project Starling’s hidden center.
