Sold to a Dead Man, I Became a Billionaire's Heiress

The next morning, Ava walked out of the Shaw's front door, dragging a single, worn-out suitcase. She didn't look back. Overnight, she had packed the few belongings she had.

Richard stood in the doorway, his jaw tight. “Just make sure you contact the Coopers today,” he called after her. Brenda hovered behind him, muttering that Ava was nothing but trouble.

Ava ignored them and walked to the curb to call an Uber.

Before getting in the car, she looked back at the house that had been her prison for ten years. She studied it the way one might study a stranger’s photo—detached, almost clinical.

The Uber pulled away from the familiar street. As the scenery blurred past the window, Ava took out her phone and dialed Leo.

A young, energetic voice answered immediately, "Ava! You finally decided to call me! What was that message last night?"

Ava's tone was calm. "I need you to run a search for my maternal grandfather through a genealogy site. I only have an old name he might have used and a general birth area."

She gave Leo a few vague details, pieced together from one of her adoptive mother's drunken rants.

Leo agreed instantly, his voice turning serious, "No problem, leave it to me. Give me half a day. I'll find him even if I have to turn the entire North American database upside down."

Ava hung up and told the driver to take her to a short-term apartment in downtown New York, one she had prepaid with money saved from years of odd jobs.

Back at the Shaw house, Richard and Brenda were arguing. Brenda voiced her worry that Ava would disappear, and the Cooper money would vanish with her.

Richard said grimly that Ava would have to contact them. He insisted she was penniless and had nowhere else to go, dismissing her talk of finding relatives as a childish fantasy.

Megan listened from the couch, already picturing Ava dragging that battered suitcase through a bus station, maybe sleeping on a bench. The image pleased her.

Meanwhile, in a top-floor luxury hospital suite in Manhattan, the air was thick with unspoken fear.

Arthur Kensington, the patriarch of the Kensington family, had been in a coma for months. The doctors had stopped using the word “stable.”

His seven grandsons, Ava's seven older brothers, stood around the bed, their faces grim.

Julian Kensington, the eldest and current CEO of Kensington Corporation, stood with his arms crossed, listening to the chief medical officer. His knuckles were white.

Just then, Julian's executive assistant knocked and entered, looking rushed. He held a tablet, his expression a mix of shock and excitement.

The assistant lowered his voice, but couldn't hide his thrill. "CEO, we ran the global gene bank comparison. We found... we found a trace of the young miss!"

Seven pairs of eyes snapped to him. For a long second, no one exhaled. They had been searching for their long-lost sister for nearly twenty years.

The assistant handed the tablet to Julian. It showed a report with a 99.99% genetic match. The report was linked to a new query that had just been created on a public genealogy website.

The information of the person who initiated the query was simple. Just a name: Ava Mckenzie.

Julian's hand trembled slightly as he stared at the name. He gave an immediate order. "Find her. Use every resource. I want to know where she is and what she's been through in the last ten minutes."

At that exact moment, the medical monitor, which had been beeping steadily, suddenly let out a series of urgent alarms.

The doctors paled, thinking his condition was worsening.

But they watched in shock as the waveform on the EKG steadied, growing visibly stronger and more regular.

On the bed, Arthur, who had been comatose for months, felt his eyelids flutter.

His lips parted, and he uttered a faint but clear syllable. It was his granddaughter's nickname.

The doctors were dumbfounded, unable to explain the sudden improvement.

But the Kensington brothers looked at each other, a shared joy and certainty in their eyes. It was the news of their sister that had woken their grandfather.

Julian immediately issued a second command. "Get the cars ready. We're going to pick her up ourselves."

On the other side of New York, Ava had just checked into her small apartment. She looked out the window at the towering skyscrapers and took a deep breath.

This was the first day of her new life. She had no idea that a powerful family had just been set in motion by her one small action.

Her phone vibrated. It was a message from Leo. "Got a preliminary result, but it looks... like the family's financial situation is very ordinary, maybe even poor. It's weird, though. The data query was guided to this result, like a higher authority was interfering."

Ava read the message twice. Rich or poor, it didn’t change anything—she only wanted the connection. The interference didn’t interest her.

She replied, "It's fine. Send me the file."