Chapter 4
The tractor ride took nearly two hours.
It started in the city. Traffic lights, streams of cars, glass office buildings catching the afternoon sun. Then the suburbs, where the road widened, and trees began lining both sides in thick clusters. Further on came a long, straight boulevard, its plane trees arching overhead in a quiet canopy, so still that even the wind seemed to soften.
Ryan didn't talk much along the way, just checked in occasionally to ask if she was cold or needed water.
Elowen leaned back in her seat, watching the scenery shift outside the window, quietly sorting through something in her mind—
Everything she knew about her biological parents.
In her last life, she had survived three years with the Perez family, barely hanging on until they threw her out, and she died in an alley in Wynterhaven. In all those three years, she had never seriously thought about finding her birth parents. Vaughn had told her they were poor, and she had believed him.
She wasted three years loving people who never loved her back.
But sitting here in this tractor, passing through a boulevard so quiet it felt unreal, something stirred in her chest. A strange feeling she couldn't quite name.
Something wasn't adding up.
The tractor rounded a bend at the end of the boulevard, and Ryan slowed down.
"Ms. Adams, we're almost there."
Elowen sat up and looked ahead.
Then she froze.
Not the polite, mild kind of surprise—real, total, mind-going-blank frozen.
She had expected a run-down farm. Dirt roads, low buildings, a rusty iron gate. She had even prepared herself on the way over, told herself none of that would matter, because her real family would be there.
Instead, she saw—
White marble walls glowing softly in the afternoon light, understated but impossible to ignore, carrying a quiet kind of weight. Blue pointed turrets rising high above, like something lifted from an old European estate. Iron gates swung slowly open on both sides, leading to a stone-paved path that stretched toward a fountain plaza, where water caught the sunlight and scattered it into a thousand tiny sparks. Gardens spread out on either side, reaching so far she couldn't find the edges.
This was her home?
She had spent the ride over planning how to lift a disabled mother and a former addict father out of poverty. She had already mapped out the first three steps.
Ryan parked the tractor in front of the fountain plaza and jumped down.
"Ms. Adams, we're home. Mrs. Adams has been waiting since this morning."
Elowen climbed down from the tractor, stepped onto the smooth stone surface, and stood there for almost five seconds without moving.
"Ryan, what exactly do my birth parents do?"
Ryan lifted the luggage down from the tractor, grinning so wide his eyes nearly disappeared.
"You'll find out for yourself soon enough, Ms. Adams. It'll mean a lot more coming from them than from me."
Just then, a voice rang out from deep within the estate.
"Elowen's back—"
The voice shook with effort, like it took everything to push that call across the plaza. It came from far away, but landed as clearly as if someone had whispered it right in her ear.
A woman came hurrying out from the direction of the estate, nearly at a run, her heels clicking fast and uneven against the stone.
An ivory dress, carefully put-together, features delicate and refined details.
And in the lines of her face, a shape Elowen had seen before—in her own mirror.
The same curve at the corner of the eyes, the same arch of the brows. Only the faint lines at the edges, the quiet marks of years that had passed.
The woman ran to her, stopped for just a moment, then pulled her into a hug.
It was tight—tight enough that Elowen could barely breathe—but she didn't pull away.
"My baby girl," the woman's voice trembled against her ear, thick with tears she was trying to hold back. "Mom finally found you. I missed you so much…"
Elowen stood stiff, her arms hanging in the air, not sure whether to hug back.
Hazel had hugged her before, but never like this. Hazel always left a small gap, like she was handling something borrowed.
This woman held her like she was reclaiming a piece of herself that had been missing for eighteen years.
Elowen felt a sting behind her nose. She pushed the feeling down, but not all the way.
"Mom."
One word, barely above a whisper.
It made the woman's whole body shudder, and she finally let herself cry.
Tiffany Lawson pulled back and held Elowen's face in both hands, thumbs moving gently across her cheeks, as if making sure she was real.
"Getting to hear you call me that before I die—I can go in peace now… You look so much like your father. So much."
Elowen thought of what Vaughn had said. "Mom, they told me Dad had a history of drug use?"
Tiffany blinked, then let out a laugh through her tears, pinching Elowen's cheek lightly.
"Who told you that? Your father runs the Adams family. He controls nearly half the commercial interests in Wynterhaven. He's abroad right now, closing a deal, and will be back in a few days."
"All of that was false information we put out on purpose to weed out impostors. We spent eighteen years searching for you. So many people showed up pretending to be you, trying to scam us. We had no choice."
Elowen nodded, keeping her face calm.
"And my brother—"
"You have two older brothers, no younger ones." Tiffany took her hand and started walking toward the estate.
"Your eldest brother is Andrew Adams. Your second is Ronnie Adams."
Elowen's step faltered slightly.
Andrew Adams. Ronnie Adams.
One was the most acclaimed actor in the industry, practically a legend. The other controlled several publicly listed companies and was one of the most powerful young figures in business. In Wynterhaven's upper circles, those two names were like landmarks—the kind that came up at every gathering of well-bred daughters without fail.
"Little sis!"
A voice came from the entrance of the estate.
Elowen turned to see two men walking out with long strides.
The one in front wore a black casual shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, his slightly upturned almond-shaped eyes carrying an easy, careless confidence. The one behind was in a well-pressed dark suit, and when he pulled off his sunglasses, he revealed a pair of steady eyes that held something between assessment and protection.
The one in front jogged over, looked her up and down, and his eyes went red.
"That face—she's definitely one of ours. I'd know it anywhere."
He reached into his pocket and pressed a black card into her hand.
"Sis, I don't have anything great to give you, but there's no limit on this card. Buy whatever you want. If it's not enough, come to me."
The other man stepped closer and handed her a document envelope, his voice low and even.
"This is fifteen percent equity in the film and media company I own. Annual dividends come out to around fifty million US dollars. Take it for now."
The one holding the black card immediately turned on him.
"Andrew, when were you going to tell me you were handing out equity behind my back?"
"A credit card has to be paid back. You think she wants that?"
"I'm not asking her to pay it back!"
"Alright, enough." Tiffany laughed and stepped between her two sons. "Your sister just got home. Let her go inside and rest."
Tiffany took Elowen's hand and led her toward the estate.
As they passed the fountain, Elowen couldn't help but glance back at the tractor.
Ryan was unloading the woven sack from the truck. He caught her looking and gave her an easy, good-natured smile.
The sack sat full and lumpy on the stone ground, looking like nothing more than a bag of plain soybeans.
Whatever was hidden in that sack of soybeans left at the Perez villa's front door—no one knew yet.
Elowen looked away and followed Tiffany inside.
In her last life, she had died alone in an alley in a foreign country, with no one to collect her body.
In this life, she had just walked through the door of a home that was truly hers.
