Gabriel was asking about his arrest. He wasn't a fool. Everything had been fine, so why had he and Nora suddenly gotten into trouble at the same time? It had to be a deliberate setup.
Anastasia answered calmly, “No.”
It was true. She hadn't done it; Harrison had.
“Who is my birth father?” she asked again.
“I don’t know! The man died years ago!” Gabriel’s face twisted with malice and satisfaction at the mention of him.
Even after all these years, he still remembered that first glance. The man standing beside Cecilia had been handsome, noble, and effortlessly graceful, making Gabriel feel inferior in every way.
But so what? He had died an early death, and in the end, Cecilia had become his.
He then tried to play the sympathy card with Anastasia. “Anastasia, you may not be my biological daughter, but didn’t I raise you like my own all these years? You can’t abandon me! Go to Mr. Harrison Lancaster, ask him to help, to get me out of here. I can’t go to prison!”
Anastasia ignored him. Once she realized Gabriel truly didn't have the answers she sought, she left.
Later, she checked on Nora’s case and was slightly disappointed to learn the police hadn't found anything conclusive. After that, she stopped following their stories.
She only heard updates by chance during a visit to the Austin family. Queena was in prison, as was Gabriel. Nora had been released, but without Gabriel and Queena, she had no support and no source of income, and was not doing well.
Juliet told her, “Yolanda and I went shopping yesterday and saw her waiting tables at a restaurant!”
Nora had lived the comfortable life of a wealthy socialite for years and hadn’t done manual labor in a long time. Waiting tables, something she might have done in her youth, was now completely foreign to her. It was easy to imagine she wasn’t very good at it.
When Juliet saw her, Nora was arguing with a customer after dropping a plate and was being scolded by the manager.
Anastasia didn’t get home until evening. As she walked in, she saw an unexpected figure—Stella Lancaster.
Stella was still in high school and boarded at her school. She had returned to campus not long after coming back from Fairhaven and usually made a point of avoiding Anastasia on her weekends home. But not today.
In fact, when she saw Anastasia enter, Stella made no move to leave. It was as if she had been waiting for her.
Before Anastasia could get close, Stella jumped to her feet, a malicious and excited grin on her face. With her hands on her hips, she declared—
“Anastasia, your lucky streak is over!”
“You don’t know yet, do you? Naomi is back!”

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