A Woman Worth Billions Dated the Wrong Brother novel Chapter 371

Ember

Amber POV

There was no useful information about the disappearance of the St. Johns family.

That alone bothered me…

Jason had activated every Chronos contact he trusted and searched through private databases, government archives, old university records, corporate registries, property transactions, newspapers, and decades-old society pages. We could reconstruct the St. Johns family’s history almost perfectly until one particular point.

Then they simply disappeared.

There was no public collapse, no bankruptcy, no mass funeral, no announcement that the family had left, the country. Their companies didn’t gradually fail, and their properties weren’t publicly liquidated. A family wealthy and influential enough to leave footprints everywhere suddenly stopped leaving them at all.

The one thing Jason managed to establish with certainty was where the St. Johns family had originated.

Sum.

“The St. Johns were from Sum,” Jason said one afternoon.

I looked away from the reports I’d been reading. At six months pregnant and still on bed rest, I’d become accustomed to conducting practically my entire life from the sofa or our bedroom.

“Originally?”

“Very originally.”

Mr. and Mrs. Sun, who were both in the living room with us, immediately became interested. Mr. Sun had spent the last several days going through old records belonging to his daughter, while Mrs. Sun had been sorting photographs and correspondence.

Jason turned his laptop so we could see the screen. “Their oldest businesses, properties, and family records are here. They left Sum eventually, but they maintained assets here.”

Then he found something much more interesting.

A will.

More specifically, an enormous family trust.

The St. Johns family had consolidated a significant portion of their wealth before disappearing. Money, investments, properties, and other assets had been placed into a trust with very unusual instructions.

It was supposed to remain active for fifty years.

Waiting.

“For what?” I asked.

“A relative.”

I frowned.

Jason showed me the conditions. Any legitimate blood relative of the St. Johns family could submit themselves for verification. If their relationship was established according to the trust’s requirements, they could potentially inherit.

“How much money?”

Jason told me.

I stared at him.

“That’s obscene.”

“That’s the original amount.”

I stared harder.

“The original amount?”

“It’s been invested.”

Wonderful.

Apparently, if Connor St. Johns turned out to be Jason’s biological father, my husband might accidentally inherit another fortune.

Mrs. Sun immediately looked at Jason. “Take the test.”

“No.”

“Jason.”

“I’m not taking a DNA test because Mom had a close male friend in college and there happens to be money involved.”

Mr. Sun shook his head. “Forget the money.”

“There’s an impressive amount of it to forget.”

Despite everything, I laughed.

Mrs. Sun pointed at Jason. “You wanted to know whether White is your biological father. We can’t test White because he’s hiding. This could give you another answer.”

Jason became quiet.

That was the real reason to do it.

Not the inheritance.

Connor. 

Jason’s mother had been extremely close to Connor St. Johns during university. The timeline allowed for the possibility that Connor could be Jason’s biological father, and now we’d discovered that the St. Johns had deliberately created a trust designed to wait decades for surviving relatives.

Eventually, Jason nodded.

“I’ll do it.”

The St. Johns trust had its own legal verification process, which wasn’t surprising considering the fortune involved. Jason contacted the trustees, explained why he had reason to suspect a possible biological connection, and began the process.

Then, because neither Jason nor I had ever learned how to leave one mystery alone while waiting for another, he continued digging into the St. Johns history.

That was when he found my family.

“Amber.”

I looked over.

His expression made me immediately suspicious.

“What?”

“Your family is from Sum.”

I blinked.

“No, we’re not.”

“Apparently, you are.”

I sat straighter.

Jason immediately reached toward me.

“Careful.”

“I’m pregnant, Jason, not made of glass. What do you mean my family is from Sum?”

He turned the laptop toward me.

The Asher family history went back generations in River City, but apparently it went back even further somewhere else.

Here.

In Sum.

And Asher hadn’t even been our original family name.

I stared at the record.

Ember.

“The Ember family?” I asked.

Jason nodded.

Something about that name immediately made Mr. Sun react.

He came closer.

“Go back.”

Jason did.

Mr. Sun read the record and went completely still.

“You know the name,” I said.

Everyone who knows the old history of Sum knows that name.”

I looked between him and the screen.

“Apparently I don’t.”

Mr. Sun sat down across from us.

“The Ember family wasn’t simply another old family from Sum, Amber. At one point, they were the largest and most powerful family in the country.” 1

That got my attention.

“How powerful?”

“More powerful than the Suns. More powerful than most families that exist here today.”

I stared at him.

Apparently, my family history had decided to become ridiculous too.

Mrs. Sun looked at the records over Jason’s shoulder. “The Embers controlled enormous amounts of land and industry. But that wasn’t what they were remembered for.”

“What were they remembered for?”

Mr. Sun answered.

“The Vincents.”

The room became silent.

Of course.

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