REVELATION AND CHOICE

The mansion had never felt so still.

After the revelation, the estate entered a silence thick with tension. Servants avoided eye contact. The halls felt colder. Even Cassandra and Stefan seemed reduced to shadows—watching, calculating, waiting for something to erupt.

Adelina didn't sleep that night.

She sat in the solarium until the sky shifted from midnight to blue-gray, the first light creeping across the marble tiles. Her thoughts were a storm—rage, grief, confusion—and at the center of it all stood Nathan.

He found her just after sunrise.

He didn't ask permission to sit.

"I owe you everything," he said quietly.

She didn't look at him. "You owe me the truth."

He nodded. "Then I'll give it."

Nathan's voice was steady, but his eyes gave away the depth of what he was about to say.

"The original Adelina died when she was fourteen. Quietly. Privately. No public announcement. Victor didn't want the world to know. He wanted a replacement—someone who could inherit the name, the legacy, the illusion."

Adelina swallowed hard.

"And you?" she asked.

"I objected," he said. "At first. But not for the reason you think."

She turned to him.

"Ileana," he said, voice raw. "She wasn't just someone I loved. She was my half-sister."

Adelina's breath caught.

"She was Victor's child from another woman. Hidden from the public. Hidden even from the family for years. But she knew. And when she died—when she died—I was promised I wouldn't lose anyone else. That this time, I could protect her."

Her pulse thundered.

"You were meant to replace Adelina," Nathan continued, "but what they didn't realize was that when they gave you her face, her habits, her life... you also resembled Ileana. Not just in looks. But in presence. And I—"

He broke off.

Adelina's voice trembled. "You saw her in me."

He nodded slowly. "At first. And then I didn't. Then I saw you."

She stood, pacing. "So what am I to you, Nathan? A sister? A stranger? A ghost? A substitute?"

"You're real," he said fiercely. "You're not her. Not anyone else. You're the one who stayed. You're the one I chose."

"But I didn't choose you," she whispered.

Silence.

Later that morning, the family gathered. Victor was flanked by his advisors. Cassandra looked like a marble statue, unreadable. Stefan refused to meet Adelina's gaze.

"The board will contain this," Victor announced. "We release a statement about a minor identity confusion. Nothing more. The family name remains untouched."

"I'm not a headline," Adelina said. "You don't get to spin me."

"You're a Gavrila," he said.

"No," she said. "I'm Adelina. And that name is mine now. Not yours."

Cassandra finally spoke. "If you walk away, you lose everything."

"Maybe that's what I need."

She found Nathan that night in the greenhouse. The same one where, years ago, he had first taught her to plant roses. The scent of earth and memory surrounded them.

"I'm leaving," she said.

His hands tensed around the spade he held. "For how long?"

"I don't know."

He nodded slowly, then set the spade aside.

"I never meant to own you," he said. "I just didn't know how to live without you."

"I don't think I can hate you," she admitted. "But I also don't think I can stay near you and still be me."

He stepped closer. "Would you have chosen me, if we'd met differently?"

She looked up. "You're asking the wrong question."

"Then what's the right one?"

She leaned in just enough for him to feel the answer between them.

"Would you have loved me if I didn't look like her?"

He flinched.

And in that silence, she had her answer.

She left the next day.

Not quietly—but with her head high.

Mira hugged her at the gate.

"You're braver than any of them," she whispered.

Adelina smiled. "I'm not done yet. Just… reclaiming who I am."

But just as she stepped into the waiting car, a figure emerged from the far side of the drive. Dressed in gray. Elegant. Familiar.

A woman.

Adelina froze.

She knew that face.

From dreams.

From mirrors.

The woman smiled faintly.

"Hello, Adelina. Or whatever they've told you to be now."

Mira stepped between them. "Who are you?"

The woman looked past her. Right at Adelina.

"I'm the one they thought was dead."

Adelina's heart stopped.

"Ileana?"

The woman smiled wider.

"Not quite."

Then everything went black.