Chapter 4

My father's health rapidly deteriorated, and my uncles and aunts eyed the Montgomery family's assets like vultures.

I suffered from severe morning sickness and lacked energy, so I reluctantly began handing over core projects to Marcus.

Marcus's business acumen seemed innate.

The projects he spearheaded brought unprecedented profit breakthroughs for the company.

But the more outstanding he became, the more my father worried.

He wanted a guarantee.

A guarantee that Marcus could never shake the foundations of the Montgomery family.

So, after our daughter, Lily, was born, Marcus proactively suggested that our daughter carry *my* family name, Montgomery – an unheard-of concession for a man in his position.

This was the condition my father had initially set, for which he would exchange his blessing.

I still remember Marcus's words in the hospital, as he held our newborn daughter and spoke to me on the bed.

His eyes held humiliation, ambition.

Only the clarity of his youth was gone.

His face pale, he said to me:

"Audrey, I've done this much for you and the Montgomery family. Your father should be at ease now."

I understood that a man deprived of the right to pass on his own family name, to truly establish his lineage, would always seek to compensate elsewhere.

More money, more women – these were his avenues for regaining what he felt he had lost.

I gave him power, tacitly allowing him to cultivate his own loyalists.

And Chloe, it was after that, that he personally promoted her from her assistant position.

It wasn't until my father passed away when Lily was seven years old.

The moment my father closed his eyes, a certain balance was completely broken.

Marcus's era began.

Or rather, what he *thought* was his era.

These past few years, I retreated behind the scenes, ostensibly caring for my husband and daughter, but in reality, observing with a cold eye.

I watched how Marcus drastically reformed the company, and how he step by step promoted Chloe to a high-ranking director position.

Chloe was indeed capable.

She was like a sharp, unwavering weapon, striking wherever Marcus directed, always achieving victory.

She secured several key domestic and international projects for the company, was decisive at the negotiation table, and charming and persuasive in social settings.

She was his most capable right-hand, his most understanding comrade, and his most intimate lover.

Everyone in the company knew.

Only I.

Audrey Montgomery-Sterling, the mistress of the Montgomery family.

Like a porcelain doll living in the past, enshrined at home, unheeded.

Megan's call merely peeled back the thin veneer of what was already an open secret.

Over these years, every unusual fund flow, every abnormal personnel change in the company, arrived promptly in my private inbox each week, in the form of encrypted emails.

I hung up the phone and glanced at Lily's focused back in her study.

Lily's high school career was about to end.

And that meant.

Audrey Montgomery's era was about to begin anew.