Chapter 2 - Daniel didn't remember running into the church.One second he was on the steps holding the key.
The next he was forcing his way through the panicked crowd.
People were shouting.
Someone had overturned a table.
A glass chandelier swung violently overhead.
His father was on the floor beside one of the pews, blood running from his forehead.
“Dad!”
Daniel dropped beside him.
Richard grabbed his wrist.
“She's dangerous.”
“Who?”
“Your mother.”
Daniel froze.
Richard's eyes darted toward the doors.
“She came here to destroy us.”
“Then why did she say you told me she died?”
Richard didn't answer.
Daniel pulled out the photograph.
“And what is this?”
Richard's face tightened when he saw Victor Hale beside him.
“That picture is fake.”
“Then why are you shaking?”
Richard stared at his son.
For the first time, Daniel saw something he'd never seen in his father's face.
Not authority.
Not confidence.
Panic.
“Where's Sophia?” Daniel asked.
Richard's expression changed.
Daniel immediately stood.
“Sophia?”
No answer.
The guests looked around.
She was gone.
Her bouquet remained on the steps.
Daniel ran outside.
Rain poured across the church grounds.
“SOPHIA!”
Nothing.
He checked his phone.
Three missed calls.
From an unknown number.
Then a message appeared.
COME TO ROOM 217 ALONE.
Daniel stared at the screen.
A second message followed.
YOUR MOTHER IS THERE.
He looked back at the church.
Richard had followed him to the doorway.
“Don't go.”
“Why?”
“Because this is exactly what they want.”
“Who is they?”
Richard's silence answered him.
Daniel walked away.
The key in his pocket felt like a piece of ice.
Room 217.
He knew the address of the building from the photograph.
An old apartment block on the edge of the city.
His childhood home.
He hadn't been there since he was five.
At least, that's what he'd been told.
Forty minutes later, Daniel stood in front of the building.
Rain ran down his face.
The lobby smelled of dust and old electricity.
The elevator was broken.
He climbed two flights of stairs.
Room 217 stood at the end of a dark corridor.
The door was unlocked.
Daniel pushed it open.
“Mom?”
Nothing.
The apartment was empty.
But it wasn't abandoned.
Someone had been living there.
There were blankets.
Food.
A lamp.
Photographs.
Hundreds of them.
Daniel stepped closer.
His hands trembled.
Every photograph was of him.
At six.
At eight.
At twelve.
At sixteen.
At twenty.
At twenty-five.
Someone had followed his entire life.
Then he saw the most recent photograph.
Daniel standing outside his office three weeks ago.
Taken from across the street.
His stomach dropped.
A voice came from behind him.
“You shouldn't have come alone.”
Daniel spun around.
The woman from the church stood in the doorway.
She had changed nothing about herself.
Still the worn coat.
Still the tired eyes.
But now Daniel noticed something else.
A silver bracelet around her wrist.
He remembered it.
A tiny red stone.
His childhood memory flashed.
A woman's wrist.
That bracelet.
Her hand on his forehead.
“Mom,” he whispered.
She shut the door.
“Your name isn't Daniel.”
He stared at her.
“What?”
“Not originally.”
She walked toward him.
“Before your father took you, your name was David.”
Daniel couldn't breathe.
“Why would he do that?”
“Because your father wasn't trying to protect you.”
She opened a drawer.
Inside was an old cassette recorder.
She pressed play.
Static.
Then a man's voice.
Richard.
Young.
Furious.
“If anyone asks, the boy is dead.”
Daniel stumbled backward.
“No.”
The recording continued.
A woman's sobbing followed.
“Please, Richard. He's your son.”
Then a child began crying.
Daniel recognized the voice.
His own.
“Mom!”
The recording stopped.
The woman looked at him.
“Your father didn't lose you.”
Daniel's face went numb.
“He stole you.”
A loud sound came from the hallway.
Footsteps.
Several people.
The woman's expression changed instantly.
“They're here.”
“Who?”
She grabbed Daniel's hand.
“Your father's men.”
The doorknob began turning.
Daniel looked around.
“Where do we go?”
She pointed toward a narrow door behind the kitchen.
“The basement.”
A gunshot punched through the apartment door.
Daniel flinched.
The woman pulled him toward the back.
Another bullet tore through the wall.
They ran down a narrow staircase.
At the bottom, Daniel saw something that made him stop.
A rusted child's bicycle.
And carved into the concrete beside it were two names.
DAVID
and beneath it,
MICHAEL
Daniel stared.
“Who's Michael?”
His mother grabbed his shoulder.
She looked terrified.
“He was your little brother.”
A man's voice echoed from upstairs.
“Mrs. Cross!”
The woman closed her eyes.
Daniel whispered,
“But you said my father took me.”
“I said he took you.”
She opened the basement door.
“He left your brother behind.”
A scream came from the apartment above.
Then silence.
His mother pulled Daniel deeper into the darkness.
“We have ten minutes.”
“Until what?”
May you like
She looked at him.
“Until your wedding becomes a murder scene.”
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