Chapter 5 - Elena had been dead for three years.Yet she was standing in my library with my daughter in her arms.
My brain rejected the sight.
My body accepted it.
That was the problem.
Every instinct I had told me to hold her.
Every rational thought told me this could be a trap.
“How did you survive?”
Elena looked at my mother.
“She helped me disappear.”
My mother said nothing.
“Why would she do that?”
“Because the men who killed my identity were inside your security team.”
I looked at Marco.
“You staged my death?”
Marco shook his head.
“Elena staged her own.”
She stepped toward me.
“I knew someone was planning to use the girls.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because I didn't know whom to trust.”
I laughed once.
It came out broken.
“You should have trusted me.”
“I did.”
“Then why leave me for three years?”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Because someone made me choose between staying with you and keeping Lily alive.”
Lily clung to her mother.
Sophie stood beside me, crying silently.
“Who?” I asked.
Elena looked at my mother.
“My brother-in-law.”
I stared at her.
“Victor?”
She nodded.
“He is alive.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“How?”
“Your mother helped him disappear.”
My mother finally spoke.
“Victor wasn't the mastermind.”
“Then who was?”
Elena's expression changed.
“Your father.”
My stomach dropped.
My father had been dead for fourteen years.
A heart attack.
Buried in Chicago.
Memorial attended by hundreds.
Elena continued.
“He died legally. Not operationally.”
I stared at her.
“That doesn't make sense.”
“It will.”
She pointed toward R-17.
“The passage isn't a hiding place.”
“Then what is it?”
“A vault.”
“For what?”
“People.”
The word made no sense.
Elena pulled a tablet from inside her coat.
She opened a file.
Photographs appeared.
Men.
Women.
Children.
Each photograph had a number.
R-11.
R-12.
R-13.
R-14.
R-15.
R-16.
R-17.
I stared at the last image.
It was me.
Taken twelve years earlier.
I was standing beside Elena.
And behind us stood my father.
Under the photograph was a date.
Three days before your father died.
“Why am I in their system?”
“Because you were supposed to be the final subject.”
I felt my hand tighten around the pistol.
“Subject for what?”
Elena looked at Lily.
“Memory.”
Lily lifted her head.
She whispered:
“They made me watch.”
Elena went still.
Sophie stepped forward.
“What did they make you watch?”
Lily pointed toward me.
“Dad.”
Then toward Elena.
“Mom.”
Then toward my mother.
“Grandma.”
She covered her ears.
“Fire.”
Elena closed her eyes.
“The night of the crash.”
She looked at me.
“Lily was in the car.”
I stared at my daughter.
“But she survived.”
“She wasn't supposed to.”
My mother looked toward the clock.
9:43 p.m.
“We have seventeen minutes.”
“Until what?”
“The house lockdown.”
Marco stepped forward.
“Once the lockdown begins, no doors open from inside.”
Elena looked at me.
“You have to open the vault before 10:00.”
I shook my head.
“What happens if I don't?”
May you like
Marco answered.
“Everyone inside this house suffocates.”
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