Chapter 5 - THE WOMAN IN THE PHOTOGRAPHWe found our mother at 11:40 that morning.
She was sitting alone in a seaside café.
No bodyguards.
No security.
No idea that we had already discovered the truth she had spent years hiding.
When she saw Isabella, she stood so quickly that her chair fell backward.
"My God."
Isabella walked toward her.
"Mom."
Our mother looked at me.
Her face collapsed.
"You came back."
"I never left."
She closed her eyes.
That hurt more than any confession could have.
We sat at a private table.
I placed the photograph between us.
Mother stared at it.
She didn't deny knowing the man.
"His name is Victor Hale."
"Who is he?"
She whispered:
"The man your father worked for."
I leaned forward.
"And Jasper?"
"Jasper worked for Victor."
Isabella's hands trembled.
"Did you know what Jasper was doing to me?"
Mother looked at her.
"I knew he was controlling you."
"Controlling me?"
Her voice cracked.
"He nearly killed me."
Mother started crying.
"I tried to protect you."
"You left me with him."
Silence.
Then Mother told us everything.
Our father had discovered that Victor Hale was using the Montgomery Trust to control a private network of companies.
When Father tried to expose him, Victor threatened our family.
Father agreed to cooperate.
Then he started secretly recording everything.
The evidence was stored inside the underground room.
But Father never got the chance to release it.
He died eleven days later.
Officially, heart failure.
Mother admitted she knew it wasn't natural.
"Why didn't you go to the police?"
"Because I couldn't trust them."
"Why didn't you tell us?"
"Because Victor said he'd kill both of you."
I stared at her.
"And Jasper?"
Mother shook her head.
"Jasper didn't kill your father."
"Then who did?"
She looked at Isabella.
"The same person who tried to kill him is now trying to recover the ledger."
"Victor?"
"No."
That answer stopped us.
Mother reached into her handbag.
She removed an old envelope.
Inside was a photograph.
A young woman stood beside our father.
I recognized her immediately.
"Who is she?"
Mother hesitated.
"Your father's first wife."
Isabella stared.
"What?"
Mother's voice was barely audible.
"Before me."
The woman in the photograph was elegant, dark-haired, and strikingly familiar.
She had Isabella's eyes.
"Her name was Elena."
"Is she alive?"
Mother didn't answer.
That was answer enough.
"She disappeared twenty-seven years ago."
I looked at the photograph again.
Then at Isabella.
Then back at the photograph.
There was something unsettling about the woman's face.
Not because she looked like Isabella.
Because she looked like our mother.
Mother stood.
"There's more."
She pulled another envelope from her bag.
"This was given to me the week your father died."
Inside was a bank card.
No name.
No number.
Only the three-circle symbol.
And a handwritten location.
Warehouse 17.
Isabella went pale.
"That's where Jasper took me."
I looked at Mother.
"Why did you keep this?"
"Because I was told to."
"By whom?"
She swallowed.
"Your father."
Before I could question her further, the café's front windows shattered.
People screamed.
A bullet struck the table.
I pushed Isabella down.
Another shot.
Mother fell sideways.
I caught her.
"Mom!"
Blood spread across her shoulder.
She was alive.
Barely.
Outside, a black SUV accelerated away from the curb.
I ran to the window.
The license plate was obscured.
But the driver wasn't.
Victor Hale.
I had never met him before.
Yet I knew him instantly.
Because my father had described his face in the letter.
The man had looked exactly the same twenty-five years earlier.
Victor Hale hadn't aged.
And as the SUV disappeared around the corner, I realized something worse.
He hadn't been shooting at my mother.
May you like
He had been shooting at the photograph.
The one showing Elena.
Related Stories
