The Bags Beneath the Birthday Banner
Chapter 01 - The Bags Beneath the Birthday Banner
Emma Bennett’s twenty-fifth birthday should have marked the day she inherited her late father’s controlling shares in Bennett House, the luxury hotel company he had built from a single roadside inn. Instead, she stood alone beside a cupcake with one candle while gold balloons floated above a room filled with relatives, executives, and people who had never once called her without needing something.
Her mother, Diane, kept checking the doors. Emma’s stepfather, Richard Cole, had insisted on organizing the party at the family mansion, even though he had barely spoken to her in months. Since Emma’s father died eight years earlier, Richard had managed the company “temporarily.” At midnight, the trust was supposed to transfer control to Emma.
Before anyone could sing, Richard entered with three enormous black trash bags. He dropped them at Emma’s feet and announced that they contained everything from her bedroom.
“You won’t be staying here after tonight,” he said.
The guests went silent.
Richard held up a report from a private investigator. According to the document, Emma was not the biological daughter of Thomas Bennett. A second page claimed her birth certificate had been altered, making her ineligible to inherit the company or the mansion. Richard said he had already asked the board to transfer the shares to Diane as Thomas’s surviving spouse.
Emma looked at her mother. Diane’s face had gone white, but she said nothing.
Richard pointed toward the front doors. “Take your things and leave before security does it for you.”
Tears filled Emma’s eyes. She had spent years preparing to protect her father’s employees and complete the medical charity he had begun before his death. Now people whispered that she had lived inside someone else’s family.
Then the doors opened.
Sebastian Grant, Thomas Bennett’s oldest friend and former attorney, walked into the room wearing a white suit and carrying a sealed folder. Behind him came Noah Kim, a nervous junior accountant from Bennett House.
Sebastian placed the folder beside Emma’s untouched cupcake.
“The investigation Richard just showed you is false,” he said. “And I can prove who paid to create it.”
Richard laughed, but the color left his face.
Sebastian opened the first page. Across the top, in bold letters, were the words:
May you like
FORGED INVESTIGATION EVIDENCE.
Beneath them was Richard’s signature.
