CHAPTER 2 — THE SECRET ROOM BENEATH THE MANSION
Nathan Whitmore stared at the photograph until the edges blurred in his shaking hands.
Emma.
She had been there.
Twenty years ago.
Standing beside his mother.
Watching over him.
But why?
And why had no one ever told him?
Behind him, the door to the study creaked open.
Nathan spun around.
Olivia stood in the doorway, one hand resting against the polished wooden frame.
Her expression was calm.
Too calm.
“What are you doing in here?” she asked.
Nathan quickly turned the photograph facedown.
“This room belonged to my mother.”
“I know.”
Her answer came too quickly.
Nathan’s eyes narrowed.
“How would you know that?”
For half a second, Olivia’s smile disappeared.
Then she laughed softly.
“You’ve mentioned it before.”
“No, I haven’t.”
The silence between them grew heavy.
Olivia stepped into the room.
Her heels clicked slowly against the dusty floor.
“Nathan, you’re upset. That maid said something to manipulate you, didn’t she?”
“Her name is Emma.”
Olivia stopped.
It was the first time Nathan had ever corrected her.
“She was an employee,” Olivia replied coldly. “Nothing more.”
Nathan looked down at the photograph again.
“If she was nothing more, why is she in a picture with my mother?”
Olivia’s face tightened.
“What picture?”
Nathan lifted it.
The moment Olivia saw Emma’s younger face, all color vanished from her cheeks.
It lasted only a second.
But Nathan saw it.
“You recognize her,” he said.
“No.”
“You’re lying.”
Olivia’s eyes sharpened.
“Be careful, Nathan.”
“With what?”
“With letting a servant destroy everything we’ve built.”
Nathan moved closer.
“What exactly have we built?”
Olivia didn’t answer.
Instead, she reached toward the photograph.
“Give it to me.”
Nathan pulled it away.
“Why?”
“It’s old. It means nothing.”
“Then why do you want it?”
Before Olivia could respond, a faint vibration came from inside the wooden chest.
Nathan froze.
There was something beneath the velvet lining.
He tore it open and discovered a small black phone.
Old.
Dust-covered.
But still powered on.
One unread message glowed across the screen.
DO NOT TRUST THE WOMAN WEARING YOUR MOTHER’S RING.
Nathan slowly raised his eyes.
Olivia’s right hand was pressed against her chest.
On her finger...
Was a sapphire ring.
The ring Nathan had given her six months earlier.
The ring she claimed had belonged to her grandmother.
Nathan stepped backward.
“Where did you get that ring?”
Olivia looked down.
For the first time, genuine fear crossed her face.
“I told you.”
“You said it was a family heirloom.”
“It is.”
Nathan grabbed an old portrait from the wall.
His mother stood in the center, smiling beside his father.
On her finger was the same sapphire ring.
The same oval stone.
The same silver engraving.
The same tiny crack near the edge.
Nathan felt the room tilt beneath him.
“That belonged to my mother.”
Olivia’s lips parted.
“I can explain.”
“Then explain.”
She stared at him.
Her breathing grew faster.
But before she could speak, every light in the mansion suddenly went out.
Darkness swallowed the room.
A loud crash came from downstairs.
Then a woman screamed.
Nathan rushed toward the hallway.
The servants were shouting.
Someone had broken through the rear entrance.
“Call security!” Nathan yelled.
He grabbed his phone, but there was no signal.
The entire security system had been disabled.
When the emergency lights flickered on, Nathan looked back toward the study.
Olivia was gone.
So was the photograph.
And the wooden chest had been emptied.
Nathan ran downstairs.
The kitchen door swung open in the wind.
Broken glass covered the floor.
Near the doorway, the housekeeper lay unconscious.
Beside her was a small white envelope.
Nathan picked it up.
His name was written across the front.
Inside was a single page.
Nathan,
If you are reading this, then Emma has finally left the house.
That means they have won.
You were never the true heir to the Whitmore fortune.
And the woman you are planning to marry knows exactly who is.
Nathan read the final sentence twice.
Then a third time.
His chest tightened.
At the bottom of the letter was an address.
An abandoned church outside the city.
And beneath it, written in red ink:
Find Emma before midnight.
Or she will die the way your mother did.
Nathan looked at the grandfather clock.
11:08 p.m.
He had fifty-two minutes.
He ran toward the garage.
But when he opened the door, he stopped dead.
All six cars had been destroyed.
Tires slashed.
Engines damaged.
Fuel leaking across the floor.
Someone had planned this.
Someone inside the mansion.
Nathan pulled out his phone again.
Still no signal.
Then he heard an engine outside.
A black motorcycle waited beyond the gates.
The rider removed his helmet.
Nathan recognized him immediately.
Marcus Kane.
His mother’s former bodyguard.
A man who had disappeared the night she died.
Marcus looked older now.
A scar crossed his left cheek.
“Get on,” he ordered.
Nathan didn’t move.
“You vanished for twenty years.”
Marcus stared toward the dark windows of the mansion.
“I didn’t vanish.”
“I was hiding.”
“From whom?”
Marcus looked directly at him.
“From your father.”
Nathan’s blood ran cold.
“My father died ten years ago.”
Marcus shook his head.
“No, Nathan.”
“He didn’t.”
A second engine roared somewhere behind them.
Headlights appeared at the end of the road.
Marcus threw Nathan a helmet.
“We have no time.”
“Where’s Emma?”
Marcus started the motorcycle.
“If we’re lucky, she’s still alive.”
“And if we’re not?”
Marcus looked toward the approaching vehicle.
“Then you’ll never learn why your mother chose her over you.”
Nathan climbed onto the motorcycle.
They sped away just as a black SUV smashed through the mansion gates.
Inside the SUV, Olivia sat in the passenger seat.
The sapphire ring glimmered on her finger.
The driver turned toward her.
“Should we kill them both?”
Olivia watched Nathan disappear into the night.
Her eyes filled with something far more dangerous than anger.
“No,” she whispered.
“Bring Nathan back alive.”
“And Emma?”
Olivia smiled.
May you like
“Emma has already lived twenty years longer than she was supposed to.”
TO BE CONTINUED...
