CHAPTER 5: THE SECOND CHILD
The countdown flashed in blood-red letters.
04:59
04:58
A piercing alarm echoed through the underground facility.
Every server rack began shutting down one by one.
Hard drives clicked.
Cooling fans stopped.
The room was preparing to erase itself.
Victor slipped Elena's leather journal inside his jacket.
"Everyone, move!"
But before they reached the elevator, the doors slammed shut with a metallic crash.
ACCESS DENIED
Lily pressed the emergency button repeatedly.
Nothing.
"They locked us in!"
Victor looked around.
There had to be another exit.
People who built secret bunkers never relied on a single escape route.
Then Ethan tugged on his father's sleeve.
"Daddy."
"The lady said there's another door."
Victor knelt.
"Where?"
The little boy pointed toward the far wall.
"The birds."
Victor followed his finger.
A massive mural of ravens covered the concrete.
Hundreds of black birds painted in flight.
Beautiful.
Disturbing.
One raven, however, faced the opposite direction.
Victor pressed it.
Nothing.
Then he remembered something Elena used to tell Ethan before bed.
"When you're lost..."
"The bird flying home is always different."
Victor twisted the raven's head instead of pressing it.
A deep rumble echoed through the chamber.
Part of the wall slid aside.
A narrow tunnel appeared.
"Go!"
The countdown reached three minutes as they sprinted through the passage.
The tunnel twisted beneath the mansion like a maze.
Fresh footprints covered the dusty floor.
Someone had escaped this way only hours earlier.
Victor suddenly stopped.
There were two sets of footprints.
One belonged to an adult.
The other...
To a child.
Much smaller than Ethan.
Victor stared at them.
Impossible.
Unless...
They emerged inside an abandoned greenhouse behind the estate.
The instant they stepped outside...
A deafening explosion shook the ground.
Fire burst beneath the east wing.
Glass shattered throughout the mansion.
The hidden facility collapsed into itself.
Clouds of dust rose into the night sky.
Everything inside...
Destroyed.
Or so someone wanted Victor to believe.
Firefighters and police flooded the property.
Detectives sealed off the east wing.
News helicopters circled overhead.
Reporters shouted questions from beyond the gates.
Victor ignored all of them.
He locked himself inside his study.
Only Lily and Ethan remained with him.
The leather journal rested on the desk.
Victor carefully opened the first unread page.
Elena's handwriting was unmistakable.
Elegant.
Calm.
As if she knew someone would one day read these words.
If this journal reaches you, Victor...
It means they failed to destroy everything.
Victor swallowed hard.
He continued reading.
You will believe I died.
You will attend my funeral.
You will hate yourself for not protecting me.
None of it will be your fault.
Victor closed his eyes.
Every sentence struck like a knife.
He forced himself onward.
The people hunting our family don't want money.
Money is only the key.
They want the inheritance hidden inside your father's trust.
Victor frowned.
His father's trust?
He knew every clause of the billion-dollar inheritance.
There was nothing unusual.
Unless...
He had never seen the original.
The next paragraph made his blood run cold.
Victor...
Ethan was never their first target.
His hands began trembling.
He turned the page.
We had twins.
Silence filled the room.
Victor stopped breathing.
Lily slowly looked up.
"No..."
Victor read the sentence again.
And again.
The words never changed.
We had twins.
His memories became fragmented.
The hospital.
Elena exhausted after childbirth.
Doctors telling him the delivery had been difficult.
He remembered hearing only one baby cry.
Then...
Darkness.
A sedative.
One of the nurses insisted he rest.
When he woke...
They placed Ethan in his arms.
No one mentioned another child.
He had never questioned it.
Until now.
The journal continued.
Our daughter was taken less than one hour after birth.
Victor felt the room spinning.
The ink blurred through tears.
Someone inside Blackwood Manor helped them.
Someone you trusted.
Lily whispered,
"My God..."
Victor kept reading.
They made me choose.
One child...
Or both children die.
Victor slammed his fist against the desk.
"No..."
He refused to believe Elena had faced such a choice alone.
I let them take our daughter because I believed I could rescue her later.
I was wrong.
Victor buried his face in his hands.
For three years...
He had mourned a wife he believed dead.
Never knowing she had survived.
Never knowing he had a daughter somewhere in the world.
A folded photograph slipped from between the journal pages.
Victor picked it up.
It showed Elena lying in her hospital bed.
Smiling weakly.
Holding two newborn babies.
One wrapped in blue.
One in pink.
On the back she had written:
Ethan and Emma. Together forever.
Victor whispered the name.
"Emma..."
For the first time in his life...
He spoke his daughter's name.
Just then, Ethan looked at the photograph.
His tiny eyes widened.
"I know her."
Victor froze.
"What?"
"The girl."
"You've seen her?"
Ethan nodded innocently.
"She plays with me."
The room fell silent.
Victor slowly knelt before his son.
"When?"
"Sometimes in my dreams."
"And sometimes..."
He pointed toward the garden outside.
"...through the window."
Victor's heartbeat thundered.
"Did she tell you her name?"
Ethan smiled.
"Emma."
Neither Victor nor Lily had mentioned the name aloud.
The journal had remained on the desk.
Yet Ethan had answered without hesitation.
A knock echoed on the study door.
Three sharp knocks.
Victor immediately hid the journal.
"Come in."
The security captain entered.
His face was pale.
"Sir..."
"What is it?"
"We've identified the sniper who killed Mr. Harris."
Victor stood.
"Who?"
The captain hesitated.
"We recovered fingerprints from the rifle."
He handed Victor a forensic report.
Victor glanced at the name.
His expression instantly changed.
"That's impossible."
The captain nodded.
"We checked three times."
Victor slowly lowered the report.
The fingerprints belonged to only one person.
Elena Blackwood.
The woman Victor had seen alive.
The woman who begged him not to trust anyone.
The woman whose journal claimed she had sacrificed everything to save their children.
According to the evidence...
She had also murdered the one man who was trying to tell Victor the truth.
Victor looked down at Elena's photograph.
Then back at the report.
One of them was lying.
Or someone had gone to extraordinary lengths to make Elena look like a killer.
Outside the study window, hidden among the trees beyond the mansion walls, a young woman with long dark hair watched the room through binoculars.
A silver pendant in the shape of a white rose rested against her neck.
She whispered only four words before disappearing into the night.
May you like
"I'm sorry, Father."
END OF CHAPTER 5
