The Heiress He Underestimated novel Chapter 59

Chapter 59 The Baited Line

The call from Aunt Margaret came early the next morning, while Elera was wrist–deep in a sterile glove box, carefully pipetting a solution of synthesized enzymes into a petri dish containing a culture of Drakonius’s modified cells. The new cellular integration was showing promise. The growth was cleaner, more organized. It was a small victory, but in the war she was fighting, it felt like the turning of a tide.

Her personal phone, set to silent but not off, buzzed against the stainless steel counter with a specific, persistent pattern. A family call. Not her father–she had him blocked. This was the old landline number from her aunt’s house in the leafy, quiet suburbs.

Elera felt a pang of something complicated. Guilt, maybe. Margaret was kind in a fluttery, ineffectual way. She had been the one to give Elera beautifully illustrated anatomy books for Christmas when she was twelve, while her father gave her pearls. She was the only relative who had ever seemed to look at her and see a person, not a accessory,

She pulled off her gloves, washed her hands meticulously, and stepped out of the lab’s clean zone before answering.

“Aunt Margaret?”

“Elera, darling! Oh, it’s so good to hear your voice!” Margaret’s voice was thin, strained with a familiar note of anxiety. “I’ve been so worried. All this dreadful business in the papers… are you alright? Are you safe?”

The genuine concern, so different from her father’s acting performances, thawed a little of the ice around Elera’s heart. “I’m safe, Aunt Margaret. I’m… well. I’m sorry I haven’t called.”

“Oh, pish, don’t you worry about that. You’ve had your own whirlwind to manage, I’m sure!” Margaret took a shaky breath. “Darling, I’m calling because… well, it’s a bit of a family crisis. It’s about your grandmother’s foundation.”

Elera frowned, leaning against the cool lab wall. “The Nethys–Hawthorne Medical Trust? What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s in such a big muddle. Something legal. Kieran has been trying to sort it, but you know how these lawyers can tie everything up in knots for years. They’re talking about freezing the assets! All that beautiful work your grandmother wanted to do, supporting those little research hospitals… it could all just vanish.”

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