Chapter 5 - The Woman in the Photograph
Victor did not move.
Neither did Gabriel.
Two brothers stood across the library with two years of grief between them.
Hannah held Mia.
The child was shaking.
Gabriel raised both hands.
“I’m not here to hurt anyone.”
Victor’s voice was ice.
“You’re supposed to be dead.”
“That was the idea.”
“Whose?”
“Sebastian’s.”
Victor stepped forward.
“Explain.”
Gabriel looked at Mia.
“Not in front of her.”
Mia surprised everyone.
“No.”
The word was small.
Clear.
Victor turned.
Mia tightened her hand around Hannah’s.
“No.”
Gabriel’s eyes filled.
“You remember me.”
Mia nodded.
Then she did something that destroyed Victor’s certainty.
She ran to Gabriel.
Gabriel dropped to his knees.
Mia threw her arms around him.
Victor stared.
Hannah understood before he did.
Mia wasn’t afraid of Gabriel.
She had been waiting for him.
Gabriel explained everything.
He had discovered Sebastian’s financial scheme first.
Adrian joined him.
Together they gathered evidence.
Sebastian learned what they were doing.
On the night of the explosion, Gabriel called Adrian to warn him not to use Gate Seventeen.
Sebastian intercepted part of the communication and redirected Adrian’s car.
Gabriel arrived too late.
He found Mia after the explosion.
Alive.
Terrified.
Before emergency crews arrived, Mia told him she had heard Sebastian’s voice through her mother’s phone.
Gabriel knew Sebastian would realize Mia was a witness.
So he disappeared.
“Why leave her?” Victor demanded.
“Because Sebastian told me he’d kill her if I came near her again.”
Victor’s fists tightened.
“You should have told me.”
“I tried.”
“When?”
“Three times.”
Victor stopped.
Gabriel looked toward Mrs. Higgins, who had entered behind security.
“Every message went through estate administration.”
Mrs. Higgins paled.
“I never received them.”
“Someone did.”
Hannah thought of the staff rule.
No touching.
No questioning.
No comforting.
A rule Victor never made.
A rule designed to keep Mia isolated.
Not protected.
Isolated.
“Sebastian needed everyone afraid of upsetting her,” Hannah said.
Gabriel nodded.
“If Mia trusted someone, she might talk.”
Victor looked at Hannah.
That was why she mattered.
Not because she possessed evidence.
Because Mia trusted her.
Gabriel opened his coat and removed a photograph.
The same woman from the old picture with Laura.
Elena.
Beside her stood another woman.
Mrs. Higgins gasped.
Hannah looked at her.
“You know her?”
Mrs. Higgins nodded slowly.
“Margaret Vale.”
“Who is she?”
Victor answered.
“Mia’s former therapist.”
Gabriel turned the photograph over.
A date.
Three weeks after the explosion.
Victor stared.
“She told me she had never met Elena.”
“She lied,” Gabriel said.
Margaret had been hired privately by Sebastian months before the explosion.
Her job was not to help Mia remember.
It was to make sure Mia never trusted her memories.
Hannah felt nauseated.
Victor looked furious.
“Where is she?”
Gabriel hesitated.
“Inside the estate.”
Everyone froze.
Mrs. Higgins whispered, “That’s impossible.”
Gabriel shook his head.
“She never left.”
A noise came from upstairs.
A door slammed.
Mia turned pale.
Then she whispered:
“West wing.”
Victor looked at her.
Mia pointed toward the forbidden corridor.
The corridor Hannah had been told never to enter.
Victor moved first.
Hannah followed.
At the end of the west wing stood a locked door.
Victor entered a code.
Rejected.
Again.
Rejected.
Someone had changed it.
Gabriel stepped forward.
“Move.”
He entered six digits.
The lock clicked.
Victor looked at him.
“How did you know?”
Gabriel didn’t answer.
He opened the door.
Beyond it was not a bedroom.
It was a private monitoring room.
Screens.
Archived recordings.
Medical reports.
Photographs.
Mia.
Hundreds of photographs of Mia.
Hannah.
Photographs of Hannah too.
Victor stepped inside.
His face hardened with every screen.
Someone had been watching both of them.
On a desk lay a file.
HANNAH BROOKS.
Inside were her employment history.
Her mother’s medical records.
Her debts.
Her address.
Everything.
Hannah’s hands trembled.
Victor closed the folder.
“This ends tonight.”
Then Mia pointed toward one monitor.
A live camera.
The hospital.
Laura’s room.
Empty.
Hannah stopped breathing.
She grabbed her phone.
Called.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Then a message appeared.
UNKNOWN NUMBER.
COME ALONE IF YOU WANT YOUR MOTHER SAFE.
Attached was an address.
Hannah stared.
Victor took the phone.
“No.”
“She has my mother.”
“We don’t know that.”
“My mother isn’t answering.”
“Hannah.”
“I’m going.”
“Then I’m going with you.”
“The message says alone.”
Victor stepped closer.
“And whoever sent it has spent two years controlling this family through fear.”
His voice softened.
“I’m not letting them control you too.”
Hannah looked at Mia.
The girl suddenly walked to the monitoring desk.
She pulled open a drawer.
Inside was a small voice recorder.
Mia pressed play.
A woman’s voice filled the room.
“You must never tell Victor what you heard, Mia. If you do, the people you love will disappear.”
Victor’s face changed.
Margaret.
Then another voice entered the recording.
A man.
“Good. Keep her afraid.”
Sebastian.
Victor closed his eyes.
Proof.
Finally.
But the recording continued.
Margaret asked, “And the Brooks woman?”
Sebastian answered.
“Bring the daughter into the house when the time is right.”
Hannah went cold.
Margaret laughed softly.
“And if Mia remembers because of her?”
A pause.
Then Sebastian said:
“Then Hannah Brooks becomes the perfect person to blame.”
The recording stopped.
Nobody spoke.
Then Hannah’s phone rang.
Her mother’s number.
Hannah answered.
“Mom?”
Silence.
Then Laura whispered:
“Hannah, don’t come here.”
A man spoke behind her.
“Too late.”
The call ended.
Victor looked at Hannah.
Gabriel checked the address.
His face changed.
“I know this place.”
“Where?” Victor asked.
Gabriel looked toward the dark windows.
“The house where Sebastian planned everything two years ago.”
Victor picked up his coat.
Then the estate alarm began screaming.
Caleb’s voice came through the radio.
“Mr. Romano, someone just opened the west gate.”
Victor turned.
May you like
Caleb’s next words silenced the entire room.
“Sebastian Romano is coming inside...”
