Page 126 of Damaged Mogul

“Okay,” I say.

“A couple weeks after Mama’s passing, her best friend announced I’d be moving to New York to live with my father. I assumed I’d be staying with her. I knew nothing about legal matters surrounding a parent’s death and what that meant to the child.”

“You had to deal with the death of your mother and a man who was going to step in as a father figure. On top of that, you found out you had to leave Alabama to live with a father you didn’t know. That’s a lot for a kid to handle.”

“It was.” She nods. “I asked Mama’s best friend why I couldn’t stay with her. She told me Mama made sure I’d be taken care of if anything were to happen to her. My grandfather was never in the picture and my grandma had passed away when I was a kid.”

“What about your mom’s older sister?”

“The boyfriend she stayed behind for in Miami turned out to have a side hustle for a drug lord. It’s not clear what he did to piss off the kingpin, but he ended up with a bullet between his eyes. My aunt suffered the same fate.”

My eyeswiden in shock.

“Yeah, it’s pretty gruesome,” she says. “Mama made sure I had an insurance policy—one my father couldn’t dispute.”

“How did she manage that?”

“My aunt was ordinary looking, but Mom was incredibly pretty when she was young?—”

“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

Lily blushes. “Thank you.”

“Sorry I interrupted you.”

“That’s okay. Even after he fessed up about being married, my father couldn’t stay away. He was taken with her. Mama wised up real fast. She pulled a soap opera stunt.”

“A what?”

“DNA testing. She stole his toothbrush, hairbrush… and even underwear.”

I whistle. “She wasn’t leaving anything to chance.”

“She took things one step further.”

“Blood samples?”

She laughs a little. “She took photos of my father sleeping when they were together in bed. She kept the incriminating details in a small suitcase. When she died, her best friend knew what to do. Tracking down my father wasn’t that complicated, given his status. A couple weeks after Mom passed away, Henry, the butler, came to take me to New York.”

“Jesus, you didn’t even know the guy.”

“I didn’t know my father either at the time. I had never met him. I only knew of him. In fact, I thought Henry was my father until he corrected me.”

I shake my head.Unbelievable.

“We flew together to Connecticut—my first time on a plane.” She continues. “I went from slumming it in a tiny apartment to living in a big, luxurious house similar to the ones I’d only seen on TV.”

“Your father wasn’t there to greet you?” She said as much, but I can’t get over it.

“It took three months before my father came to visit.” She lets out a breath, audible and sad. “He needed time to set things in motion so he could ship me to Switzerland, undetected. That ninja move didn’t prevent his wife from finding out about me.”

“One of your father’s staff members blew the whistle?”

“I assume.”

“Unless it was your mom’s best friend.”

“She swore it wasn’t her."