Before Their Names Became Enemies
Chapter 03 - Before Their Names Became Enemies
Long before Hawthorne House became a place of fear, it had been the center of Lily’s happiest memories.
Her father, Thomas Carter, had grown up with Richard Hawthorne, Adrian’s father. Richard possessed the family name and inherited money; Thomas possessed the ideas that turned one aging textile mill into a national manufacturing company. They called each other brothers and promised that their children would grow up without understanding the difference between rich and poor.
Adrian and Lily spent summers building forts in the garden, hiding beneath banquet tables, and listening outside the library while their fathers discussed business. Richard often joked that Adrian would inherit the company and Lily would be the only person clever enough to stop him from ruining it.
Victoria never laughed.
She had married into the Hawthorne family and guarded its status with the devotion of a soldier. To her, Thomas was useful but never equal. Lily was tolerated only because Richard insisted.
Everything changed on a November night when Richard and Thomas left a board meeting together. Their car went off a mountain road during a storm. Richard died at the scene. Thomas survived long enough to be accused of transferring twelve million dollars from the company.
Victoria produced documents bearing his signature. The board believed her. By the time Thomas died in the hospital two days later, his reputation had been destroyed.
Lily’s mother took her away before the funeral.
Adrian, only sixteen, was told that Thomas had betrayed the family and that Lily wanted nothing more to do with him. He wrote letters for months. None were answered because Victoria intercepted every one.
Lily also wrote. She begged Adrian to believe her father was innocent. Her letters disappeared into the same locked drawer.
Two grieving children grew into adults believing the other had chosen silence.
Years later, Lily graduated near the top of her accounting class but found doors closing whenever employers searched her last name. Adrian joined Hawthorne Industries and learned to perform confidence while privately questioning every story his mother told.
Neither forgot the garden.
Neither knew that Richard Hawthorne had signed one final agreement before his death—an agreement proving Thomas Carter was not an employee, but an equal owner.
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For fifteen years, Victoria kept that truth hidden.
Now it was traveling back to Hawthorne House inside Adrian’s briefcase.
