The storm may have calmed in the public eye, but inside Vivienne, the winds howled louder than ever.
Felix Marlowe was behind bars. Ivy's empire was crumbling. The Rothsford name had been salvaged from scandal. Yet something about the ease of Ivy's fall didn't sit right with her.
It was too neat. Too clean.
People like Ivy didn't just disappear. They reinvented.
---
Vivienne stared at the surveillance footage again—the last confirmed video of Ivy before her public disgrace. She watched it for the twelfth time that week.
The way Ivy turned to glance behind her.
The brief flash of fear in her eyes.
"She knew something was coming," Vivienne murmured.
Rhys stood beside her, silent.
"I don't think she was just running," Vivienne added. "I think she was being chased."
Rhys leaned over, zooming into a figure blurred in the background of the frame.
"I'll run it through enhancement software. But Vivienne—if you're right, then we might have missed something huge."
Vivienne nodded. Her instincts hadn't failed her yet.
---
A week later, the news broke.
Felix Marlowe was dead.
"Suicide," the headlines screamed. "No foul play suspected."
But Vivienne knew better.
She stared at the crime scene photos—Marlowe slumped in a prison cell, wrists slit, expression blank. Clean. Too clean.
"Murder," she whispered.
Rhys agreed. "The guards were switched last-minute. No cameras inside the cell. A high-profile prisoner like Marlowe? That doesn't happen by accident."
Vivienne pressed her hands together, eyes narrowing.
"They're tying up loose ends."
---
Later that evening, Vivienne met Mira and Dr. Lane in a secure location beneath Rothsford Tower. The lab had been turned into an investigation room.
A massive board displayed names, photos, red string connecting timelines and events.
"We think Ivy is alive," Mira said.
"And in hiding," Dr. Lane added. "Likely outside the country, but maintaining remote control over the network."
Vivienne stared at the board.
"It's not just about the inheritance anymore," she murmured. "There's something bigger. Something Ivy stumbled into—and now she's trying to bury it."
Dr. Lane pushed forward a sealed file. "You need to see this."
Vivienne opened it.
Inside were documents—birth records, medical charts, a family tree.
She froze.
Her name. Ivy's. Side by side.
"I had a DNA test run," Dr. Lane said gently. "Cross-referenced against a sample taken from your father's old medical files."
Vivienne's heartbeat thundered in her ears.
"You're not the fake heiress," he whispered. "You're the biological daughter."
---
The room fell silent.
The weight of the revelation crushed Vivienne's lungs.
She'd lived her entire second life believing she was a stand-in, a pawn.
But now…
"They switched the babies," she whispered. "Deliberately. My whole life… stolen."
Mira touched her shoulder. "We think Ivy discovered the truth during her first year of law school. That's when she began transferring assets, changing legal documents. She knew this could one day be revealed."
Vivienne shut her eyes. Her hands trembled.
"She let me be thrown away," she whispered. "Even knowing I was their real daughter."
---
The rage she'd held tightly for so long boiled over. But it wasn't wild. It was cold. Surgical.
"Then I want it all back," Vivienne said, her voice sharp with resolve. "Not just the fortune. The legacy. The truth."
Rhys placed a hand over hers. "We'll do this right."
She looked at him, her expression steel.
"No," she said. "We'll do this thoroughly."
---
The next weeks became a storm of strategic moves.
Vivienne hired a legal team to quietly reopen the birth switch case.
Newspapers began picking up whispers: 'Was the Rothsford heiress stolen at birth?'
Anonymous sources leaked medical reports, eyewitness testimony, even hospital staff records from two decades prior.
Vivienne never gave a public statement.
She didn't need to.
The world began connecting the dots on its own.
---
Meanwhile, Mira tracked Ivy's last known digital movements. A trail of encrypted emails led to Belize, then Morocco, and finally a private island off the coast of Croatia.
"She's hiding somewhere with no extradition treaties," Mira confirmed. "And someone is funding her. Lavishly."
Vivienne tapped her fingers on the desk.
"There's a benefactor. Someone she must've blackmailed or threatened. Or worse—someone she works for."
Dr. Lane agreed. "It could be a political figure. Or someone in intelligence."
Vivienne's eyes sharpened.
"Then we smoke them out."
---
She launched a public campaign—under the guise of promoting child welfare and hospital transparency.
What the world didn't realize was that every hospital she targeted had past ties to the Rothsford switch. Every investigation she pushed forward uncovered names—nurses, doctors, and eventually, a now-retired administrator living under a false identity.
They found him in Lisbon.
His name: Daniel Verrick.
He was the man who had signed off on the switch.
When Mira and Rhys cornered him, he confessed.
"I was paid," he stammered. "A lot. By your father's lawyer."
Vivienne blinked.
"My father knew?"
"Not your father," Daniel whispered. "Your grandfather."
---
The revelation cut deeper than anything before.
Her grandfather—Joseph Rothsford—the patriarch who trained her, mentored her, molded her into the woman she became… had orchestrated the greatest betrayal of all.
Why?
Why would he do that?
Dr. Lane returned with answers days later.
"Your mother," he said. "She had an affair. Joseph suspected the baby wasn't your father's. So he had the records falsified, arranged a switch—replacing you with Ivy, who he believed was a child of 'true' blood."
Vivienne staggered back.
"I was punished for a sin I never committed," she whispered.
Rhys wrapped an arm around her, grounding her.
"But he raised you anyway," Mira added softly. "Trained you. Loved you, in his way."
Vivienne's lips curled bitterly.
"Loved me as long as I didn't know the truth."
---
She visited his grave that night.
Stood in silence.
Then whispered:
"I forgive you… but I will rewrite everything you built."
---
Three weeks later, Vivienne stood before the Rothsford board once again.
She presented the final truth: DNA results, the birth switch, the confessions, and the fraud. Ivy was not the heiress. Never had been.
The board unanimously voted to transfer all titles, holdings, and control to Vivienne Rothsford—the rightful heir.
The empire was now hers. Entirely.
---
But even with the throne reclaimed, Vivienne couldn't rest.
Ivy was still out there.
Still dangerous.
And someone was still protecting her.
---
That night, a package arrived at Vivienne's doorstep.
No return address.
Inside was a single black envelope.
She opened it carefully.
Inside was a photo—taken just days ago.
It was Ivy.
Smiling.
Standing beside a man whose face was partially obscured.
Behind them: a yacht named Nemesis.
And scrawled beneath the photo in blood-red ink:
"The real game begins now."