Chapter 11

The officer didn't say another word. With a sharp click, the cuffs locked, and Zia was led out of the banquet hall, her body slumping like a rag doll. Benedict and Sapphire stood frozen, their faces drained of color, chills crawling their spines. If Natalie really was their biological daughter… What on earth had they done to her? They'd believed Zia's lies, ignored Natalie's pleas, beaten her a hundred times in punishment, cruelly cast her out, handed over the fruits of her decade-long efforts to Zia, and even forced her toward prison! Looking at the banquet hall in chaos, Lucas swallowed hard as the truth hit him. Under the harsh, pale lights, his face was ghostly white. It was over. The alliance with the Shaw family was ruined. Natalie was the true heir, and what had he done? He'd been the first to hurt her. He had helped Zia track down the old nurse for false testimony and locate the testing agency. The agency assumed it was all the Moore family's doing, which made it easy