Chapter 3 - The Woman Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
Vincent pushed the steel door open.
The room beyond was empty.
The singing continued.
A speaker.
Marcus found it mounted behind a metal cabinet.
Vincent tore the wire free.
The voice died instantly.
He stood in silence.
Elena watched his hands tremble.
Only slightly.
But she noticed.
“He wants you emotional,” she said.
Vincent looked at her.
“Who?”
“Whoever built this.”
Marcus swept the room.
Computers.
Audio equipment.
Camera feeds.
Stacks of hard drives.
And photographs.
Hundreds of them.
The twins sleeping.
The twins eating.
The twins playing outside.
Vincent meeting associates.
Celeste visiting friends.
Elena walking to the market on her days off.
She stopped.
There were pictures of her too.
Someone had been watching everyone.
Marcus found a notebook.
Every page contained times.
2:47 a.m.
2:53.
3:00.
3:03.
Notes beside them described the twins’ reactions.
“Rose wakes first.”
“Lily responds strongly to maternal audio.”
“Father becomes less rational after prolonged sleep deprivation.”
Elena felt sick.
“This is an experiment.”
Vincent looked at the screens.
“No.”
His face hardened.
“This is preparation.”
“For what?”
“To make me unstable.”
Marcus nodded slowly.
“If the twins appeared mentally ill and you started making irrational decisions…”
“The board could force an internal vote.”
Elena knew enough about Vincent’s world to understand.
The Starks organization was not merely criminal.
It controlled legitimate construction companies, shipping firms, real estate holdings, and private security contracts.
Vincent remained at the center because his family trusted his judgment.
Destroy that reputation—
And someone could replace him.
“Dorian?” Elena asked.
Vincent’s expression darkened.
“My uncle has wanted me to step back for years.”
Marcus opened another file.
“Then why fake Adrian?”
Vincent looked at the photograph again.
Fear.
Guilt.
Old grief.
“He knows what Adrian means to me.”
Elena wanted to ask.
She did not.
Vincent answered anyway.
“I killed my brother.”
She stared.
“Not personally.”
He looked toward the dead monitors.
“Adrian sold information to our enemies. My father ordered a car to intercept him. I knew. I didn’t stop it.”
His voice remained steady.
“The car went over a bridge.”
Elena understood.
Someone was not merely threatening Vincent’s power.
They were using his dead against him.
Marcus inserted one of the drives.
A directory appeared.
SOPHIA.
Vincent froze.
Elena whispered, “Open it.”
Inside were audio files.
Hundreds.
Sophia laughing.
Sophia talking.
Sophia reading bedtime stories.
Sophia arguing with someone.
Vincent clicked one.
Her voice filled the room.
“Dorian, I know what you’re doing.”
Everyone went still.
Static.
Then Sophia again.
“You’re moving money through the children’s trust.”
Vincent stared at the screen.
Another male voice answered.
Dorian.
“You misunderstand the accounts.”
“No. I don’t.”
Sophia sounded furious.
“I’m telling Vincent.”
The recording ended.
Marcus whispered, “When was this?”
The file date was two days before Sophia died.
Vincent sat down.
For eighteen months he had believed his wife died in an accident.
Now a hidden recording suggested she had discovered theft inside the family just before her death.
Elena moved closer.
“There may be more.”
They searched.
Another file.
Sophia was crying this time.
“I don’t care about the money. Stay away from my daughters.”
A male voice responded.
“You should have stayed out of this.”
Dorian again.
Then—
Another voice.
Female.
“Please. Both of you stop.”
Celeste.
Vincent’s head lifted.
They listened.
Sophia said, “You knew?”
Celeste replied, “I found out tonight.”
“What did you know?” Vincent whispered.
The recording ended.
Elena looked toward the ceiling.
Celeste was upstairs with the twins.
Vincent stood instantly.
They ran.
When they reached the nursery, Celeste was sitting beside Lily.
Rose slept against her shoulder.
Vincent entered so violently that she stood.
“What did Sophia discover?”
Celeste’s face drained.
“What?”
“Two days before she died.”
Celeste stared at him.
“You found the room.”
“What did she discover?”
Celeste looked at Elena, then Marcus.
Finally back to Vincent.
“Dorian was stealing.”
“How much?”
“Millions.”
“From me?”
“From the twins.”
Vincent’s eyes narrowed.
Celeste nodded.
“Their trust becomes untouchable when they turn eighteen. Sophia discovered shell companies borrowing against future distributions.”
Vincent looked toward Dorian’s wing.
“He needed my authorization.”
“He forged it.”
“Why didn’t Sophia tell me?”
“She tried.”
Vincent stared.
Celeste’s voice broke.
“The night she died, she was driving to meet you.”
Silence.
Vincent’s face seemed to lose all emotion.
“And you knew this?”
“I knew she was suspicious. I didn’t know everything until after the accident.”
“Why did you stay quiet?”
Celeste began crying.
“Because Dorian showed me proof that Adrian was alive.”
Vincent stopped.
“No.”
“He sent videos.”
“Adrian is dead.”
“I saw him.”
“You saw video.”
“I saw him in person.”
Vincent’s eyes changed.
Celeste stepped backward.
“Six months after Sophia died. Dorian took me to a warehouse. Adrian was there.”
Marcus looked stunned.
Vincent did not move.
“What did he say?”
“He said he survived the bridge.”
Vincent’s face turned pale.
“He said Dorian helped him disappear.”
“Why?”
“To protect him from Father.”
Vincent stared at his sister.
“And Sophia?”
Celeste closed her eyes.
“Adrian said Sophia’s crash wasn’t an accident.”
Vincent walked away.
For several seconds nobody followed.
Then he punched the wall hard enough to split his knuckles.
Elena flinched.
The twins woke.
Vincent looked at them.
Immediately his anger vanished.
He crouched.
“I’m okay.”
Lily reached for him.
He held both girls.
Elena saw what the conspiracy had failed to understand.
Vincent’s daughters were not his weakness.
They were the last thing holding him together.
Marcus’s radio crackled.
“Sir, lab results.”
Vincent looked up.
The white packets contained clonidine.
But also something else.
A compound that could induce vivid nightmares and confusion.
Pike stared at the floor.
“I didn’t know.”
Vincent’s voice became cold.
“You expect mercy?”
“No.”
Pike looked at the twins.
“I expect you to believe I reduced the doses after the first night. Whoever supplied them kept increasing the concentration.”
Elena asked, “Who delivered them?”
Pike shook his head.
“They appeared in my medical bag.”
Marcus examined the packets.
“One has a pharmacy code.”
He scanned it.
The registration belonged to a private clinic.
Owned by Dorian Starks.
Vincent exhaled.
Finally, evidence.
Real evidence.
“Find him.”
The search expanded.
At dawn, Dorian’s SUV was discovered abandoned near the river.
Blood on the driver’s seat.
No body.
Marcus suspected staged evidence.
Vincent agreed.
Then the mansion phone rang.
Not Vincent’s cell.
The old landline in the nursery.
Everyone stared.
It rang again.
Vincent answered.
No one spoke.
Then a distorted male voice said:
“Three o’clock tomorrow.”
Vincent gripped the receiver.
“Who are you?”
“You already know.”
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
“Adrian?”
A laugh.
Then silence.
The voice returned.
“Bring the twins.”
Vincent’s face changed.
“No.”
“Then you’ll never know what happened to Sophia.”
Click.
The line died.
Marcus traced the call.
Nothing.
Elena looked at Vincent.
“You’re not taking them.”
“No.”
But she saw something in his face.
He was going somewhere.
Alone if necessary.
That afternoon, Elena searched the nursery again.
She checked every toy.
Every outlet.
Every frame.
Under Lily’s mattress she found a small folded envelope.
Her name was written across it.
ELENA MARLOW.
Her hands went cold.
No one in the family called her by her full name.
She opened it.
Inside was a photograph of Sophia.
Alive.
Standing beside a newspaper dated three months after her supposed death.
On the back were six words.
ASK VINCENT WHO IDENTIFIED THE BODY.
Elena turned around.
May you like
Vincent was standing in the doorway.
And he had seen the photograph.
