Chapter 6

The Moore residence was deserted, just as expected. Natalie moved through the place with practiced ease and went straight to Nelson's bedroom. Tonight, Lucas was busy spending a long, indulgent night with Zia. And Nelson would definitely be at the office, verifying the share transfer. Before moving out of the apartment she shared with Lucas, Natalie had searched everywhere, but she still couldn't find the video they kept mentioning. If it wasn't there, it had to be at the Moore residence. Sure enough, she found a USB drive in the drawer beside Nelson's desk. When she plugged it into the computer, the system prompted her for a password. She tried accessing with Nelson's birthday, Lucas' birthday, and Zia's birthday. She even tried with the death anniversaries of Nelson and Lucas' parents, but nothing worked. On a whim, she typed in her own birthday, and it was unlocked. Natalie froze. She knew exactly how obsessed Nelson had been back in the day, and she had used it to her advantage. But now? He should have only been resentful toward her. Why would he use her birthday as the password? The file history showed that from the moment the video was recorded, Nelson had replayed it dozens of times in less than a day. She shook her head, unwilling to waste another second on something so trivial. With precision, she planted a controlling virus on the file. She'd treat that night as nothing more than a minor inconvenience. At the birthday banquet a month from now, she would see who ended up completely ruined. The next day, she messaged Lucas, telling him to accompany her on a short trip out of town. Half an hour later, Nelson showed up at the Shaw residence, dark circles heavy under his eyes. Natalie couldn't help but sneer. It seemed Lucas still hadn't had his fill last night. He hadn't come back yet. He really didn't care about overdoing it. The Maybach left the bustling city of Juville, winding its way up a mountain road. "Why are we coming out here?" Nelson asked impatiently. He hadn't slept at all the night before. He'd gone through every piece of surface-level company material and actually found a few suspicious clues. And when he thought of that scene between Lucas and Zia, his mood only worsened. To avoid tipping anyone off, when Lucas asked him again to stand in for him, he agreed without hesitation. "To visit my biological parents," Natalie said quietly, her gaze fixed on the scenery outside the window. Nelson's grip on the steering wheel paused for a beat. Based on what he heard from Zia, Natalie was cold-blooded. She refused to admit that she was the fake heiress and even humiliated Zia. He hadn't expected Natalie to accept background, let alone take the initiative to visit her biological parents. Following directions from the villagers, they arrived at a neglected family plot, stripped of headstones or any signs of visitors. The other graves still bore fresh flowers and tokens from recent visitors. But this one was different—no headstone, no flowers, no sign that anyone had been there. Natalie felt something was off. While buying candles and flowers from the nearby town, she asked the locals some questions. When the funeral had taken place, Zia hadn't even shown her face, and the burial expenses had been covered by the villagers. Natalie immediately paid the cost herself, making sure everything was properly settled. She wandered through the abandoned home and found no photographs of her biological parents anywhere. A local child mentioned that Zia had destroyed all the family photos before she disappeared. As twilight fell, Natalie kneeled quietly at the gravesite, lighting candles one by one. The soft glow illuminated her profile, and her hair swayed gently in the evening breeze. By now, Natalie had her answer. Zia's adoptive parents' deaths had been suspicious. Zia was hiding something. Nelson stood behind her, watching Natalie silently pay her respects. For the first time, Nelson felt genuinely unsettled. Somehow, he realized he had never really understood her.