Chapter 5 - The first shot shattered the chandelier.Glass rained across the dining hall.
Elena pulled Sophia against her chest.
Gabriel pushed me behind the marble island.
“Stay down!”
Another shot.
Then silence.
The guards moved toward the staircase.
I reached for my weapon.
Gabriel stopped me.
“No.”
“That was inside my house.”
“Exactly.”
He glanced at the camera feed.
“Whoever fired those shots knew where the cameras were.”
The screen showed the third floor.
Empty hallway.
Broken light.
No shooter.
Then the image flickered.
A face appeared for less than a second.
Male.
Unknown.
Cap pulled low.
He looked directly into the camera.
Then vanished.
Gabriel cursed.
“That's not Victor.”
“I know.”
“Could be a contractor.”
“For whom?”
He looked at me.
“You know the answer.”
I did.
Victor.
But something was wrong.
Victor did not need to shoot at us.
He needed me alive.
The entire plan depended on a natural death.
A gunfight was messy.
Public.
Unpredictable.
Someone else was accelerating the game.
I stood.
“I need to see the third floor.”
Gabriel grabbed my arm.
“No.”
“Someone is trying to force us upstairs.”
“That's why we don't go.”
Then Sophia spoke.
“He isn't upstairs.”
Everyone froze.
She pointed toward the kitchen.
“He came from there.”
Gabriel's head snapped toward the pantry.
“How would you know?”
“He smelled like the red room.”
Silence.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
Sophia shrugged.
“Smoke.”
Gabriel moved toward the pantry.
I followed.
The pantry was empty.
Except for one thing.
A ventilation grate had been removed.
Behind it was a narrow service corridor I had never known existed.
Gabriel shone his flashlight inside.
Footprints.
Fresh.
“Someone has been using this route.”
He looked at me.
“Your house has a tunnel.”
“It appears so.”
We entered.
The corridor was barely wide enough for one man.
It ran behind the kitchen walls.
After thirty feet, it opened into a room.
The red room.
Red wallpaper.
No windows.
A desk.
A metal chair.
And photographs.
Hundreds of them.
People.
Employees.
Doctors.
Lawyers.
Security personnel.
My wife.
Me.
Victor.
Everyone connected to my life was catalogued.
Gabriel stared at the walls.
“This isn't a safe room.”
“No.”
I walked toward the desk.
“This is an archive.”
A file on top had my name.
Inside were reports dating back twelve years.
My habits.
My medical history.
My business decisions.
Even the arguments I had with my wife.
Someone had watched my life from inside the walls.
Then I saw another file.
SOPHIA RIVERA
I opened it.
Birth date.
Medical information.
School records.
Photographs.
But one document stopped me.
A DNA report.
I read the first line.
Then the second.
Then I looked at Elena.
She had followed us into the corridor.
Her face had gone white.
“Tell me.”
She shook her head.
“Tell me now.”
“I can't.”
“You can.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
Sophia stood behind her.
I looked at the report again.
It listed two names.
JULIAN MERCER
SOPHIA RIVERA
Probability of biological relationship:
99.98%
I stared at Elena.
“What is this?”
She covered her mouth.
Gabriel whispered, “Sir…”
Sophia stepped forward.
“My mom said you weren't supposed to know yet.”
I looked at her.
“Know what?”
She pointed at the DNA report.
“You're my daddy.”
Everything stopped.
The room.
The gunfire.
The entire world.
I looked at Elena.
She was crying silently.
“No.”
She shook her head.
“I wanted to tell you.”
“When?”
“Soon.”
“How soon?”
“When Victor was gone.”
My voice became almost a whisper.
“Victor knew?”
“Yes.”
“Who else?”
“My wife.”
That sentence hit harder than the gunfire.
“My wife knew Sophia was my daughter?”
Elena nodded.
“She asked me to protect her.”
I looked at the wall of photographs.
There was one of Sophia.
Taken when she was three.
Another at four.
Another last month.
Victor had been watching her.
Not protecting her.
Watching.
Then Gabriel found another folder.
He opened it.
His face changed.
“Julian.”
“What?”
He turned the folder toward me.
Inside were old medical records.
My wife's.
One sentence had been highlighted.
Patient was exposed to an unidentified cardiac compound three days before death.
I stared.
My wife hadn't died naturally.
She had been poisoned.
And the person who planned it had known about my daughter for five years.
Then the lights went out.
A voice came from the darkness.
May you like
Victor.
“You finally found the family secret.”
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