CHAPTER 4 – The Dead Woman at the Door
Ethan drove home like a man chasing a ghost.
When he reached his apartment, every light was off except one.
The kitchen.
He opened the door slowly.
A woman stood beside the table, wearing a black coat, her back turned to him.
Ethan couldn’t breathe.
Even after twenty years, he knew her.
Emily.
Older. Paler. But alive.
She turned around, and tears filled her eyes.
“I’m sorry, Ethan.”
He staggered back.
“You let me bury you.”
“I had no choice.”
“Don’t say that!” Ethan shouted. “I spent twenty years grieving you!”
Emily placed a folder on the table.
“They threatened our baby.”
Ethan froze.
“Our baby?”
Emily nodded.
“Lily.”
The room spun.
Emily continued, “They stole her identity. They changed her birth records. They made you believe she was someone else’s child after I disappeared.”
Ethan stared at her, broken.
“Why?”
Emily’s face hardened.
“Because Lily isn’t just your daughter.”
“She is the legal heir to the Voss fortune.”
At that moment, the bedroom door creaked open.
Lily stepped out.
But she wasn’t crying anymore.
She was holding a phone.
Recording everything.
Then she looked at Ethan and said coldly,
“I’m sorry, Dad.”
And behind her, the hooded stranger from the taxi appeared.
May you like
This time, he smiled.
“Now he knows enough to die.”
