Chapter 11 - Elena stared at Ruiz.“You killed my father?”
“No.”
“Then why did you say she's right?”
“Because I was standing there.”
Margaret smiled.
“And now you know.”
Ruiz shook his head.
“You don't know the whole story.”
“Then tell me.”
Ruiz looked at Elena.
“Your father asked me to protect the trust.”
“From whom?”
“The network.”
“The same network you supposedly don't know?”
Ruiz nodded.
“I infiltrated it.”
Margaret laughed.
“You became one of them.”
“To destroy them.”
Elena looked between them.
“Who should I believe?”
Neither answered.
Then Elena remembered something.
Her father had said:
Look at your wedding photograph.
She pulled it out.
Ruiz studied it.
“The man in the background.”
“Yes.”
Elena zoomed closer.
Something was reflected in a window behind him.
A second figure.
A woman.
Her mother.
But there was something else.
A small object hanging from Claire's neck.
A silver pendant.
Elena touched her own necklace.
She wore the same pendant.
Ruiz stared.
“Where did you get that?”
“My father gave it to me when I was five.”
Ruiz's expression changed.
“Then you've had the key all along.”
“What key?”
He pointed to the pendant.
“It opens the master vault.”
Elena removed it.
The pendant had a tiny hinge.
Inside was a microchip.
She stared at it.
“My father hid the access key in plain sight.”
Suddenly every clue made sense.
The trust.
The baby.
The cameras.
The hidden recordings.
Everything led toward one final vault.
But Margaret stepped forward.
“You're wasting time.”
Elena looked at her.
“Where is the vault?”
Margaret smiled.
“Under the mansion.”
Daniel entered the basement.
His face was bruised.
He looked exhausted.
“Elena.”
She turned.
“Where's my mother?”
Daniel didn't answer.
“Where is she?”
“She left.”
“Where?”
“I don't know.”
Elena moved closer.
“You're lying.”
“I wish I wasn't.”
Vanessa appeared behind him.
“Daniel.”
He turned.
Vanessa held a gun.
“Don't move.”
Daniel stared.
“Vanessa?”
“You lied to me.”
“I had no choice.”
“You always had a choice.”
She looked at Elena.
“I found something.”
She threw a folder onto the floor.
Inside were documents proving Daniel had ordered the staircase attack.
Elena looked at him.
“Why?”
Daniel looked defeated.
“Because they threatened our child.”
Elena froze.
“Our child?”
Daniel nodded.
“They told me if I didn't remove you, they'd kill the baby.”
“You could have told me.”
“They would have killed you faster.”
Vanessa lowered the gun.
“Who are ‘they’?”
Daniel looked toward Margaret.
Margaret remained silent.
Then a slow clap echoed from the doorway.
Everyone turned.
Claire stood there.
Elena's mother.
Alive.
Holding a folder.
She smiled at Elena.
“Hello, sweetheart.”
Elena couldn't move.
Claire's eyes filled with tears.
“I'm sorry it took so long.”
Then she looked at Margaret.
“But the time for hiding is over.”
Margaret's face suddenly hardened.
Claire opened the folder.
“The man behind everything has finally been identified.”
She pointed toward Daniel.
Then said:
“It's not him.”
May you like
Her finger moved.
And stopped on Elena.
