Chapter 5 - The Voice That Should Have Been Gone
The phone kept ringing.
Nobody reached for it.
Nobody even breathed normally.
Because the name on the screen wasn't supposed to exist.
ELENA DAWSON.
My mother's name.
The woman everyone told me was gone.
The woman whose grave I visited every year.
The woman whose voice I hadn't heard since I was a little girl.
I stared at the screen until my eyes started hurting.
"This is impossible," Robert whispered.
I turned toward him.
"That's what you said when you saw the key."
No one answered.
The phone continued ringing.
A sound that became more terrifying with every second.
Because if someone was using my mother's phone...
That meant someone had it.
Someone who shouldn't.
I looked at Ethan.
He looked as confused as I felt.
For the first time, I saw something different in his expression.
Not guilt.
Not fear.
Confusion.
Like he was discovering the same nightmare at the same time.
I picked up the phone.
Robert immediately stepped forward.
"Cynthia, don't."
I held up my hand.
"No."
My voice was calm.
Almost too calm.
"Everyone has told me not to do something."
I looked around the room.
"Don't open the box."
"Don't ask questions."
"Don't search for answers."
I looked at the phone.
"I'm done listening."
I answered.
For a moment, there was nothing.
Only silence.
Then...
A sound.
A breath.
My heart stopped.
"Hello?"
I don't know why I said it.
Maybe because some part of me still hoped.
Maybe because a child inside me still wanted to hear her voice.
The voice that came through the phone was quiet.
Older.
Different.
But familiar.
"Cynthia."
I dropped into the chair behind me.
My hand covered my mouth.
Because I knew that voice.
I knew it even after sixteen years.
"Mom?"
Nobody moved.
Nobody spoke.
The entire room disappeared.
There was only that voice.
My mother's voice.
"Cynthia, listen carefully."
Tears filled my eyes.
"Where are you?"
Silence.
Then:
"You shouldn't have found the room."
I looked at Robert.
His face had lost all color.
"Mom, what happened to you?"
Another silence.
Longer this time.
"I didn't disappear."
My breathing stopped.
"I was taken away."
The words hit me harder than anything Ethan had ever done.
Taken away.
Not left.
Not abandoned.
Taken.
"Who?" I whispered.
The phone crackled.
Then my mother's voice became urgent.
"You need to leave the Luciano house."
Robert stepped closer.
"Cynthia, hang up."
I ignored him.
"Why?"
My mother's voice lowered.
"Because the person standing beside you is not the person you think he is."
Everyone looked at Ethan.
Including me.
Ethan took a step backward.
"What?"
My mother's voice continued.
"Don't trust anyone who says they protected you."
The call suddenly became distorted.
"Mom!"
I grabbed the phone.
"Who are you talking about?"
The line went silent.
Then one final sentence came through.
A sentence that changed everything.
"Your father is alive."
The call ended.
I sat there frozen.
My father.
A man I had never known.
A man I believed died before I could remember him.
Alive.
No.
That wasn't possible.
Nothing about my life made sense anymore.
Robert walked away from the room.
Slowly.
Like he was carrying a weight too heavy to hold.
Ethan stayed.
I noticed that.
Despite everything.
He stayed.
"Did you know?" I asked.
His face changed.
"No."
"Don't lie."
"I'm not."
His voice cracked.
"I swear."
I looked at him.
The same eyes I used to trust.
The same person who broke my heart twenty-four hours earlier.
And somehow, this felt more painful.
Because I didn't know which version of Ethan was real.
The boy who held my hand when I was thirteen.
Or the man who called me practice behind a closed door.
"Your mother said not to trust you."
He looked down.
"I know."
That answer surprised me.
"You know?"
He nodded.
"My grandfather told me there would be a day when you found out everything."
"Everything?"
He looked at the documents scattered across the desk.
"The Luciano family isn't just a business."
I crossed my arms.
"I figured that out."
He ignored the sarcasm.
"My grandfather built everything around one secret."
"What secret?"
Ethan hesitated.
Then said:
"Your father."
I froze.
"Why?"
"Because your father knew where the original inheritance documents were."
I looked at the papers.
"The ones that belong to me?"
Ethan nodded.
"Yes."
"Why would my father hide them?"
"He didn't."
Ethan looked at me.
"Someone else did."
The room felt smaller.
I looked back at my mother's notebook.
The missing page.
The warnings.
The photograph.
The phone call.
Everything connected.
But I still couldn't see the whole picture.
"Who is my father?"
Ethan didn't answer immediately.
That scared me.
Finally, he said:
"His name was Daniel Dawson."
Was.
I noticed.
"You said was."
Ethan looked away.
"My family believes he died."
"But my mother said he's alive."
"I know."
"Then someone is lying."
Neither of us spoke.
Because we both knew.
The problem wasn't finding the lie.
The problem was discovering who created it.
I spent the next hour inside my mother's hidden room.
Reading.
Searching.
Learning things about my own life from strangers' documents.
There were records of payments.
Private investigations.
Security reports.
And one file that made my hands shake.
A file with Ethan's name.
I opened it.
Inside was a photograph.
Ethan.
At age twelve.
Standing beside my mother.
I stared at it.
"What?"
Ethan came closer.
Then stopped.
His expression changed.
"I've never seen that."
The photo was dated fifteen years ago.
The year before my mother disappeared.
On the back, my mother's handwriting appeared.
"He's not like them yet."
I looked at Ethan.
"What does that mean?"
He didn't answer.
Because he didn't know.
Or because he didn't want to.
I wasn't sure anymore.
I placed the photo down.
Then I found another envelope.
This one was addressed differently.
Not to me.
Not to Ethan.
To Robert Luciano.
I opened it before anyone could stop me.
Inside was a single page.
My mother's handwriting.
Robert,
If Cynthia finds this, it means you failed to keep your promise.
I looked at Robert.
He had returned to the doorway.
His face told me everything.
He knew.
I continued reading.
You promised me she would grow up free.
You promised Anthony would never use her.
You promised the Luciano family would stay away from my daughter.
My hands started shaking.
The final line was written darker.
Bigger.
Almost like she wrote it with anger.
But you chose the empire over the child.
The room went silent.
Robert closed his eyes.
"I'm sorry."
I stared at him.
"Sorry?"
My voice was quiet.
"Sixteen years."
He looked down.
"I tried to fix it."
"No."
I shook my head.
"You tried to hide it."
Nobody defended him.
Not even Ethan.
Then my phone buzzed.
A new message.
Unknown number.
I opened it.
A picture loaded.
My heart stopped.
It was a security camera image.
From inside this room.
Taken moments ago.
I was standing in the picture.
Ethan was standing beside me.
Robert was near the door.
Someone had been watching us.
The message underneath said:
"Now you know why Elena ran."
I looked at the timestamp.
It was sent one minute earlier.
Then another message appeared.
Three words.
"Look behind you."
I slowly turned around.
The hidden room door was still open.
May you like
But standing in the doorway...
Was someone who should have been dead.
