Chapter 5 5

The silence in Ethan's office was thick and heavy. Nobody spoke. Nobody moved. The only sound was the faint hum of the city traffic far below, muted by the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the glittering skyline.

Ethan stood behind his massive desk, both hands pressed flat against the dark wood surface. His jaw was tight, his eyes fixed on the frozen image still displayed on his phone screen. That birthmark. That crescent-shaped birthmark on the wrist of the crying woman in the viral video.

Ryan sat in one of the leather chairs across from the desk, his long legs stretched out in front of him. His fingers drummed against the armrest in a slow, rhythmic pattern. He was thinking. Processing. Calculating every angle the way he always did when dealing with complex problems in his tech empire.

Caleb stood by the window, arms crossed over his chest, staring out at the night sky. His reflection in the glass showed a face carved from stone. Unreadable. But his eyes betrayed him. They burned with something raw and desperate.

Finally, Ethan broke the silence.

"We need to find her." His voice was steady, controlled, the voice of a lawyer who had argued hundreds of cases without ever showing weakness. "Right now. Tonight. We bring her home immediately."

Ryan stopped drumming his fingers. He looked up at his older brother with calm, measured eyes. "And what if she is not the one?"

Ethan's head snapped toward him. "What?"

"What if she is not our sister?" Ryan repeated, his tone even and reasonable. "What if this is just another mistake? Another false hope?"

"That birthmark-"

"Could belong to anyone." Ryan stood up slowly, sliding his hands into his pockets. "Birthmarks are not unique identifiers, Ethan. You know that. We have been down this road before. How many times? Six? Seven?"

"Eight," Caleb said quietly from the window. His voice was rough, like gravel scraping against concrete. "Eight times Father thought he found her. Eight times the DNA came back negative. Eight times we watched him break all over again."

Ethan's fists clenched on the desk. "This is different."

"Is it?" Ryan moved closer, his expression sympathetic but firm. "Look, I want to believe this is her just as much as you do. But we cannot rush into this blindly. Father has suffered for twenty-five years searching for his daughter. Twenty-five years of hope and disappointment. If we are going to bring someone home and tell him we found his little girl, we need to be absolutely certain."

The words hung in the air like smoke. Heavy. Suffocating.

Ethan closed his eyes and took a long breath. When he opened them again, the fire in them had dimmed just slightly. "So what do you suggest?"

"DNA test." Ryan said it simply, as if it were the most obvious solution in the world. "We get a sample from her. We run the test ourselves before we say anything to Father. If it comes back positive, then we bring her home. If it comes back negative..." He trailed off, but they all knew how that sentence ended.

Caleb turned away from the window. His face was hard, his mouth set in a grim line. "And how exactly do you plan to get her DNA without her knowing? You cannot just walk up to a stranger and ask for a cheek swab."

Ryan smiled. It was a small smile, barely there, but it carried confidence. "Leave that to me."

"Ryan-"

"I will handle it," Ryan cut Ethan off smoothly. "I will find her. I will get close to her. I will get what we need. And I will do it quietly, without scaring her or raising suspicions."

Ethan studied his younger brother for a long moment. Ryan was brilliant-a tech genius who had built his company from nothing into a billion-dollar empire before he turned thirty. He was strategic, patient, and ruthless when he needed to be. If anyone could pull this off, it was him.

But there was something else in Ryan's eyes. Something that made Ethan uneasy. A kind of intensity that went beyond professional efficiency.

"This is not a business deal," Ethan said carefully. "This is potentially our sister. If she is the one, she has been through hell. The video shows her crying, hurt, broken. She needs family, not manipulation."

"I know that." Ryan's voice softened just slightly. "I am not going to hurt her, Ethan. I am going to help her. I am going to get close enough to earn her trust, and then I am going to make sure we know the truth before we turn her entire world upside down. Is that not the kindest thing we can do?"

Caleb made a sound that might have been agreement or frustration. It was hard to tell with him. "How long will this take?"

"Not long." Ryan pulled out his phone and began typing rapidly. "I already have people tracking down her address. She works as a delivery girl, which means she probably lives in a modest neighborhood. I will reach out to her tonight. Offer help. She is drowning in scandal right now, humiliated in front of the entire country. She will be desperate for someone to throw her a lifeline."

"And you are going to be that someone," Ethan said flatly.

"Yes." Ryan did not look up from his phone. "I am going to be exactly what she needs right now. A friend. An ally. Someone who believes her side of the story."

Ethan exchanged a glance with Caleb. Neither of them looked entirely comfortable with this plan, but neither of them had a better alternative.

"Fine," Ethan said finally. "But Ryan, listen to me very carefully. If she is our sister-if she is really the little girl Father has been searching for all these years-then she has already been abandoned once. Kidnapped. Stolen from her family. She grew up alone, without us, without him. If we do this wrong, if we handle this badly, we could lose her again before we even get her back."

Ryan finally looked up from his phone. His expression was serious now, all traces of his earlier confidence replaced by something deeper. Something almost vulnerable.

"I will not lose her," he said quietly. "I promise you both. I will get her sample for the DNA test, and I will do it without causing her any more pain than she has already suffered. Trust me."

Caleb pushed away from the window and walked over to stand beside Ethan's desk. He looked down at the phone screen, at the frozen image of the crying woman with the crescent moon birthmark on her wrist.

"What if it is her?" Caleb's voice was barely above a whisper. "What if we really found her after all this time?"

Nobody answered. Because the truth was, none of them knew what would happen if this woman turned out to be their long-lost sister. Their lives would change. Father's life would change. Everything they had built, everything they had become in her absence, would shift in ways they could not predict.

But they had to know. They had to be sure.

Ryan saved several screenshots from the viral video to his phone. Then he opened a new message thread and began composing a text to his contact in private investigations.

"I need everything you can find on Cora Kingston," he typed. "Former name before marriage unknown. Currently works as a delivery girl. Married to actor Liam Kingston. Divorce just finalized. I need her address, her phone number, her work schedule, everything. And I need it in the next hour."

He hit send.

Then he looked at his brothers. "I will get you the DNA sample. Just give me a few days."