Chapter 4 - The Name No One Wanted to Say
Adrien didn't answer.
The phone continued ringing.
Elena backed away.
Collins whispered:
"Don't."
Adrien looked at him.
"Why?"
"Because whoever is calling knows you're in this room."
The phone stopped.
Silence.
Then a message appeared.
Adrien opened it.
Three words.
"She's still alive."
He stared at the screen.
His mother.
Alive.
After eighteen years.
Adrien read the message again.
His fingers tightened around the phone.
"Who sent this?"
Collins shook his head.
"I don't know."
Adrien looked at Elena.
"Do you?"
She was crying.
"No."
The phone vibrated again.
A second message appeared.
"Ask Lily about the blue room."
Adrien looked at the child.
Lily was standing near the piano.
She had found a small wooden horse and was turning it over in her hands.
Adrien walked toward her.
"Lily."
She looked up.
"Yes?"
"Do you know a blue room?"
Her smile disappeared.
She nodded.
"Where?"
She pointed upstairs.
"Where Mama cried."
Adrien felt his chest tighten.
"Who made her cry?"
Lily shook her head.
"Bad man."
"Who?"
The child looked toward Collins.
Collins immediately looked away.
Adrien understood.
The old employee knew.
Everyone knew.
Everyone except him.
He took Lily's hand.
"We're going upstairs."
Elena stood.
"Mr. Moretti, please."
Adrien looked back.
"What?"
"Don't take her there."
"Why?"
"Because Sophia told me never to let Lily go near that room."
"Why?"
Elena whispered:
"Because that is where your father kept her."
Adrien froze.
"Kept who?"
Elena didn't answer.
He knew.
His mother.
Adrien remembered the years after her disappearance.
The family had told him she had left voluntarily.
His father had told him she was unstable.
He had believed them because he had been fourteen.
Now he wondered how many other lies he had accepted simply because he had been too young to question them.
Adrien took Lily upstairs.
The mansion seemed different now.
Every corridor felt like a memory he had never understood.
He reached the second floor.
At the end was a blue door.
He had never noticed it.
The lock was new.
He tried it.
Locked.
He turned toward Lily.
She pointed to a flowerpot.
Adrien moved it.
A key was underneath.
He stared at the child.
"You knew this was here?"
Lily nodded.
"Mama showed me."
Adrien unlocked the door.
The room smelled like lavender.
It was small.
There was an old bed.
A wooden chair.
A desk.
A child's drawing taped to the wall.
Adrien stepped inside.
On the desk was a photograph.
His mother.
She was holding a baby.
The same baby from the photograph downstairs.
Adrien picked it up.
Behind it was a note.
"I loved both of my children."
Adrien closed his eyes.
He had spent eighteen years believing his mother had abandoned him.
Now he understood she had been protecting someone.
Protecting Lily.
A drawer stood slightly open.
Adrien pulled it out.
Inside was a stack of letters.
All addressed to him.
All unopened.
The earliest was dated fifteen years ago.
The latest was dated three months ago.
Adrien's hands began shaking.
Three months ago.
His mother had been writing to him three months ago.
He opened one.
"Adrien,
If this reaches you, then the people who kept Lily hidden have finally lost control."
He read faster.
"Your father did not know the whole truth. He believed Lily's existence threatened everything he had built. He wanted her removed from the family record."
Adrien stopped.
His father hadn't known everything.
Then who had?
He opened the next letter.
"Someone close to your father helped hide her."
Adrien looked toward the door.
Collins.
Elena.
Someone else.
He opened another.
"The person you should fear is not the one you think."
A floorboard creaked behind him.
Adrien turned.
Nobody.
Then Lily whispered:
"Uncle Daniel."
Adrien looked at her.
"Who is Daniel?"
She pointed toward the hallway.
"That man."
Adrien stepped into the corridor.
A shadow disappeared around the corner.
He ran.
The hallway was empty.
At the far end, a door slammed.
Adrien reached it.
He opened it.
A service staircase.
Someone had just gone downstairs.
Adrien followed.
But halfway down, he saw something lying on the steps.
A man's cuff link.
Silver.
Engraved with the Moretti family crest.
Adrien picked it up.
He knew exactly who wore it.
His father's closest adviser.
A man who had been at the estate every day for years.
Daniel Moretti.
Adrien's uncle.
He looked toward the bottom of the stairs.
Then his phone vibrated.
May you like
A new message appeared.
"Your uncle knows where Sophia is."
