Chapter 9 - The FatherMy father had been dead.
That was what I believed.
He had supposedly died from a heart attack when I was twenty-four.
I had attended his funeral.
I had watched the coffin disappear beneath the ground.
Now he stood fifteen feet away.
Older.
But unmistakably him.
Nora stood beside him.
“Let her go.”
He smiled.
“You're still giving orders.”
“Release my daughter.”
“She isn't yours.”
I stepped forward.
“She is mine.”
“No.”
He pointed at Isabelle.
“She belongs to the bloodline.”
Isabelle stood.
“You're finished.”
Father laughed.
“You said that fourteen months ago.”
Daniel raised his weapon.
Father didn't even look at him.
“Daniel.”
My brother froze.
“You should be dead too.”
Daniel's jaw tightened.
“You tried.”
Father shrugged.
“Failure happens.”
I couldn't understand.
“Why?”
He looked at me.
“Because you were never supposed to leave.”
“Leave what?”
“The family.”
He explained everything.
The murders.
The fake deaths.
The surveillance.
The conditioning.
The organization had one purpose.
Control.
Politicians.
Corporations.
Law enforcement.
Criminal networks.
Families like ours.
My father had built part of it.
Daniel tried to expose it.
Isabelle tried to destroy it.
I was chosen to replace my father.
But I refused without realizing it.
So they broke me.
They used my daughters.
They used Isabelle.
They used my memories.
Then one mistake changed everything.
Olivia remembered.
She saw the killer's face.
She told her sisters.
They all remembered.
The organization couldn't kill them.
Too risky.
So they silenced them psychologically.
For fourteen months, my daughters were trapped inside their own minds.
Grace had been assigned to monitor them.
But she betrayed the organization.
She slowly helped the girls recover.
That explained the singing.
That explained everything.
I looked at Grace.
“You saved them.”
She nodded.
“I tried.”
Father laughed.
“How touching.”
He pulled out a gun.
I raised mine.
Daniel moved.
Father shot him.
Daniel collapsed.
“DANIEL!”
Isabelle screamed.
Nora began crying.
I fired.
Father disappeared behind the wall.
I ran toward my brother.
Blood soaked his shirt.
He grabbed my arm.
“Don't chase him.”
“Why?”
“He wants you angry.”
A door slammed upstairs.
Father had escaped.
I stood.
Isabelle grabbed my hand.
“He'll go for Olivia and Sophie.”
We ran.
The house was silent.
Too silent.
We found Sophie in the dining room.
Alive.
Olivia was gone.
A note lay on the table.
ONE DAUGHTER FOR ONE SECRET.
Below it was an address.
Garden City Preschool.
The place where Isabelle had been murdered.
We drove there.
The building had been abandoned for months.
Inside, the classrooms were dark.
I found Olivia sitting in the room where her mother had been shot.
Father stood behind her.
He held a gun to her head.
“You want her?”
I stepped forward.
“Yes.”
“Then answer one question.”
I stopped.
“What?”
He smiled.
“Who pulled the trigger?”
I looked at him.
“You did.”
He laughed.
“No.”
He nodded toward Isabelle.
She appeared in the doorway.
Father said:
“Ask your wife.”
I turned.
Isabelle's face was destroyed by grief.
She whispered:
“It was me.”
The room went silent.
I stared.
“No.”
She began crying.
“I pulled the trigger.”
I couldn't breathe.
“I killed your mother,” Olivia whispered.
“No.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
Olivia shook her head.
“Mommy told me not to tell you.”
Father smiled.
“The perfect ending.”
Then the lights shut off.
A gunshot exploded.
Someone screamed.
When the emergency lights returned…
Father was gone.
Olivia was gone.
And Isabelle was standing over a body.
May you like
It wasn't my father.
It was Grace.
