Secrets and Betrayals
Liam and Ray's POV
Weeks passed, but the memory of that night never left them.
They hadn't told a soul. Not Elijah. Not Matthew. Not Richard.
Every dinner, every laugh, every smile from Clara was a performance hiding something darker. And every time Elijah looked at her with that quiet intensity, they felt the weight of the secret grow heavier.
Finally, one night, Ray whispered, trembling, "We can't keep this forever."
Liam shook his head. "Not Elijah. Not yet. He'd act before we're ready."
Ray's eyes widened. "Then… who?"
"Matthew," Liam said quietly. "He'll understand. He'll know what to do without panicking."
---
Matthew's POV
The boys found him waiting in his study later that night.
"What is it?" he asked, already sensing the urgency in their faces.
Ray blurted everything out: Clara's secret call, her plotting, the hints about Starling, and that something bigger was at play.
Matthew's brow furrowed. "Are you sure?"
"Yes," Liam said. "Every word."
Matthew sank into his chair, rubbing his temples. "Then this is serious. We can't tell anyone else yet. Not Elijah, not even father. Not until I know what she's planning and how far it goes."
The boys nodded, swallowing the fear lodged deep in their chests.
...................
Six Years Ago — Starling and Elijah
Starling's world had collapsed.
Her father, falsely accused of fraud, imprisoned for life. All because of Richard Ashford.
Elijah appeared then — brilliant, ambitious, charming. She trusted him. She let herself love him.
But he betrayed her.
He used her talent, her charm, and her connections to make himself famous — all while unknowingly already harboring feelings for her. Starling's heart broke, realizing the one she trusted had been using her, even as he cared for her in ways he could not admit.
Clara's Betrayal
Starling had trusted Clara to infiltrate the Ashford family and prepare the plan for revenge.
Clara accepted, learning everything Starling wanted — the household, the boys, the routines, the careful influence over Richard, Elijah, and Matthew.
But someone came into the picture.
A new order was given: Clara was to kill Starling.
She agreed, motivated by the money and the plan's promise, and traveled to Country X under the guise of a vacation. There, she tried to carry out the task — but it failed. Starling survived. A single misstep, a stray witness, a heart beating too fast — the attempt collapsed.
..................
Starling's POV — Inside the Studio
The sunlight poured through the tall windows of her studio, glinting off half-finished canvases and the faint smell of oil paint. Starling's fingers hovered over her brush, lost in thought, when a soft knock echoed from the door.
"Starling?" a familiar voice called.
She turned, startled, to see her woman standing there — calm, composed, but with an edge she couldn't quite place.
"I… I can help you," the woman said, stepping closer, eyes gleaming with intent. "I know what you want. I can make them pay."
Starling's chest tightened. She stepped back, heart racing. "I don't… I don't know what you're talking about," she said, her voice shaky but firm.
The woman's smile didn't waver. "I can help with your revenge. Everything you've been planning… I can make it happen faster, cleaner."
Starling's hands clenched into fists. She shook her head, trying to steady herself. "No. You don't understand. I don't… I won't let anyone do this for me. I'll do it myself, have been betrayed twice, I wouldn't be stupid for the third time."
Starling's eyes narrowed, and she turned back to her canvas, trying to bury the storm rising in her chest.
The woman lingered, her eyes scanning the studio like she owned it. "You've come a long way, Starling," she said softly. "But this… this plan of yours, it could be messy. I can make it precise."
Starling set her brush down, hands trembling slightly. "I don't need… anyone's help. I've managed on my own for years."
The woman took a step closer, voice quiet but insistent. "And yet, you've stayed in the shadows. You've planned, waited… watched. I can help you strike, make them pay for everything — your father, your life, all of it. You don't have to carry the risk alone."
Starling's chest tightened. Part of her wanted to believe it — to have the burden shared, to finally see her revenge realized.
But another, fiercer part roared: No. This is mine. Mine alone.
"I… But wait, who the hell are you?" Starling said, her voice high, sharp, trembling with restrained anger.
The woman smiled — not kindly, but with a patient, tired sort of triumph. She stepped closer, and her voice dropped, the words landing like stones.
"So seriously — your father didn't tell you about me?"
Starling's hand went cold on the brush. "What… what are you saying?"
The woman reached up as if to smooth a stray hair from Starling's forehead, an intimacy that made Starling's skin crawl. "I'm your mother, Starling. And I can't let you keep suffering like this."
For a long beat, the studio held its breath. Starling's mind scrambled: memories she'd pushed down — a photograph half-burned, a lullaby she couldn't name — rose in jagged pieces. Nothing fit. Her father's betrayal, the courtroom, the prison sentence — all the hard certainties of her life — now trembled on a new axis.
"You're lying," Starling said finally, voice small and brittle. "My mother— she—"
The woman's eyes softened, and something like sorrow touched her face. "I left to protect you. I couldn't come back then. There were dangers you don't know about. I watched from the edges while everything fell apart."
Starling laughed once, a sound without humor. "Protect me? By disappearing? By letting him rot?"
"I did what I had to," the woman said quietly. "I watched you learn to survive. I watched you plan. But seeing you broken all these years — I can't stand it. I won't let you carry this alone any longer."
Starling's breath hitched. Fury tangled with something rawer — a small, impossible ache at the word mother. She swallowed. "Why now?" she demanded. "Why come when everything is set? When the plan—"
"Because I can help," the woman interrupted gently. "Not by taking from you, but by standing with you. You don't have to be alone in this."
Starling stepped back, the studio suddenly too bright, too full of ghosts. She forced her jaw to stillness, eyes narrowing into a blade. "If you're truly my mother," she said, voice flat, "then prove it. Prove you're not another lie."
The woman merely nodded, as if she'd expected it — and in the quiet that followed, Starling realized the game had just changed.
The woman's face was steady — no more theatrics, only a quiet insistence.
"If you want proof," she said, "we'll do it properly. DNA. Not words, not stories."
She reached into her bag and produced a small, clinical-looking kit — a sterile swab, a clear tube, a pre-paid form. It was ordinary and terrible all at once.
Starling stared at the kit as if it might bite. Her throat tightened. "You can't just… take my word for it?" she whispered.
The woman's hand hovered over the swab. "I don't need your word. I need the truth, and you deserve to know it without riddles. If I am your mother, I'll prove it. If I'm not, then you'll have your answer and I'll leave."
Something in the simplicity of the offer — the straight line from doubt to test — unmoored Starling. Years of cunning, planning, and cold certainty had taught her to trust only herself, but the idea of an answer pulled at a place she'd long kept bandaged.
Slowly, almost as if moving through water, Starling nodded. "Do it." Her voice was a whisper of surrender and challenge.
The woman handed her the swab, then produced another from a separate sleeve and held it out. "We do it together. Two samples. Send them to the lab. Results in a week or less."
Starling's fingers closed around the stick; it felt absurd — smaller and more fragile than the whole life she'd built on pain and promise. She lifted the swab, pressed it to her cheek as the woman instructed, careful and deliberate. Then the other woman did the same, breath even, eyes on Starling as if waiting for the smallest flinch.
When they sealed the tubes and filled out the form, the room seemed to hold its breath. The woman folded the paper and placed it into an envelope as if sealing fate itself.
"Leave a number," she said quietly. "I'll send a copy of the receipt. We'll go through this properly — clinic, chain of custody, the whole thing. No tricks."
Starling hesitated one last time, then wrote. Her hand shook more than she expected.
As the woman stood to leave with the envelope tucked against her side, Starling realized the world had narrowed to a small, clinical promise: truth, or another lie. For the first time in years, she felt something like waiting — and it was sharp enough to be frightening.