CHAPTER 2 – THE HOUSE NO ONE DARED TO VISIT
The convoy stretched for nearly a mile.
People filmed from sidewalks.
News helicopters appeared overhead.
No one understood why the city's most feared biker gang was slowly following a little girl in a pink wheelchair.
Emma wasn't scared.
She simply pointed ahead.
"This way."
After twenty minutes, the motorcycles stopped outside an old farmhouse hidden behind overgrown trees.
Tank stared.
His breathing became uneven.
"I know this place..."
One of his oldest brothers stepped beside him.
"Boss..."
"This was the social worker's house."
Fifteen years earlier...
It had been the final place investigators visited before Tank's daughter's case went cold.
The owner had died years ago.
The house had remained abandoned ever since.
Emma quietly looked toward the back garden.
"Not inside."
She pointed farther.
"There."
Tank followed her finger.
A weathered wooden shed leaned against a giant oak tree.
Its rusty door hung half open.
The bikers forced it wider.
Dust floated through broken sunlight.
Inside...
Nothing.
Just old tools.
Broken furniture.
Then Emma frowned.
"The floor sounds funny."
Tank stamped once.
A hollow echo answered.
Everyone froze.
Within minutes they ripped away the rotten boards.
Beneath them...
A hidden staircase.
Cold air rushed upward.
Flashlights switched on.
Tank descended first.
The underground room had long been abandoned.
Shelves.
Boxes.
Old documents.
Children's toys.
One tiny pink shoe.
Tank's hands began shaking uncontrollably.
Then...
He saw it.
A faded stuffed rabbit.
One ear sewn back together by hand.
His knees buckled.
"I fixed this..."
His daughter had carried it everywhere.
Near the rabbit sat an old metal lockbox.
Inside were adoption papers.
Fake identities.
Dozens of missing children's files.
Every biker stood frozen.
The social worker hadn't rescued children.
She had been selling them.
Tank felt sick.
Then one final envelope slipped from the box.
Across the front...
Written in faded ink.
FOR LILY—WHEN YOU ARE OLD ENOUGH TO COME HOME.
Tank couldn't breathe.
He slowly opened it.
Inside was a single recent photograph.
Not fifteen years old.
Recent.
A young woman.
About twenty years old.
Standing beside the ocean.
Wearing...
The exact handmade bracelet from the old photo.
On the back...
May you like
Only four handwritten words.
She never stopped searching.
