CHAPTER 6 – THE DEAD MAN'S FINAL MESSAGE
Daniel couldn't move.
William Hayes lay motionless on the cold marble floor, his final words echoing in Daniel's mind.
"Don't trust..."
But don't trust who?
The police sealed the underground vault within minutes.
Every employee, every executive, every security guard was questioned.
Yet there was one impossible detail.
The surveillance cameras had recorded no one entering.
No one leaving.
It was as if the killer had vanished into thin air.
Two days later, William's funeral was held under heavy security.
Daniel stood silently beside the coffin.
As the ceremony ended, an elderly woman wearing a black veil approached him.
Without saying a word, she slipped a folded note into his hand.
Then she disappeared into the crowd.
Daniel unfolded it.
Only six words were written inside.
"Your father planned all of this."
His blood ran cold.
That night, Daniel returned to his penthouse.
The lights were already on.
Someone was inside.
He reached for the fireplace poker and slowly walked toward the living room.
A young woman stood by the window.
She wasn't afraid.
She was waiting for him.
"My name is Sophia Holloway," she said quietly.
"I'm Richard Holloway's daughter."
Daniel froze.
"I don't have a sister."
Sophia looked into his eyes.
"Neither did I..."
"Until yesterday."
She placed an old family photograph on the table.
Richard Holloway stood smiling beside a little girl.
And beside him...
...was a ten-year-old boy.
Daniel.
The date on the back was twenty-three years ago.
His knees nearly gave out.
"My mother told me my father died before I was born," Daniel whispered.
Sophia shook her head.
"She lied to protect you."
Before Daniel could ask another question, Sophia opened a leather folder.
Inside were classified adoption records.
Medical files.
Private letters.
Then she revealed the truth that shattered everything.
Richard Holloway had hidden Daniel under another identity because someone had tried to kidnap him as a child.
The kidnapping failed.
But two innocent people died that night.
Daniel's adoptive parents.
They hadn't died in a car accident.
They had been murdered...
By men hired to eliminate Richard Holloway's secret heir.
Daniel's hands trembled.
"So they've been hunting me..."
"My entire life?"
Sophia nodded.
"And now they know exactly who you are."
Just then...
The penthouse windows exploded inward.
CRASH!
Masked gunmen stormed into the apartment.
Bullets ripped through the walls.
Daniel pulled Sophia behind the marble kitchen island as glass rained across the floor.
The attackers weren't there to steal money.
They weren't there for revenge.
They had only one mission.
Kill every surviving heir of the Holloway family.
As Daniel reached for William's missing file, hidden beneath the floorboards exactly where William had instructed years ago, he realized the horrifying truth.
William hadn't died protecting the company's fortune.
He had died protecting a list.
A list containing every person involved in Richard Holloway's murder.
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And one name at the very top made Daniel stop breathing.
His own mother's.
