Chapter 9 - The Ring
There remained one impossible question.
The ring.
“I watched them close Emma’s casket,” I told Victoria.
“I know.”
“She was wearing this ring.”
“No.”
Victoria looked at it.
“She was wearing a copy.”
I stared at her.
“Who arranged that?”
“Richard.”
After the accident, Emma’s personal effects were inventoried.
Victoria took the wedding ring.
Richard ordered a replica made.
During the closed-casket funeral, nobody could distinguish it.
“Why keep the real one?”
Victoria’s face crumpled.
“At first I didn’t.”
“What?”
“I gave it back to Emma.”
Emma confirmed this.
Years later, when Victoria visited her, Emma still possessed it.
“Visited her where?”
Victoria looked terrified.
“A house Richard was paying for.”
“And you took it again.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“She was planning to leave.”
I looked at Emma.
She nodded.
“I had packed Lily’s things.”
Victoria discovered the plan.
She took Emma’s phone, financial documents, and ring.
Not because the ring itself mattered financially.
Because it could prove Emma’s identity.
Then, years later, Victoria began wearing it privately.
Eventually she wore it publicly.
“Why would you do something so stupid?” I asked.
Victoria whispered:
May you like
![92 The Girl They Called Broke Was a Billionaire’s Daughter—But Her Father’s Arrival Exposed a Secret Powerful People Had Buried for Years]](https://cdn.treeiq.biz/site_590/2026/11/clone-0-0915d882-53d7-4d17-b43a-a010ca1a1068.webp)
“Because after enough time, I convinced myself it belonged to the life I should have had.”
---
