CHAPTER 8 — "MY MOTHER'S LAST LETTER CHANGED EVERYTHING."
I left before sunrise.
Against my father's orders.
Against Detective Marcus's warnings.
Against common sense.
Vanessa wanted me alone.
So I went alone.
The address led to an abandoned psychiatric hospital hidden deep in the mountains.
Its windows were boarded shut.
Its walls stained by decades of rain.
The front doors stood open.
As if someone had been expecting me.
Inside, every hallway echoed with silence.
Then I heard a weak voice.
"Ryan..."
I ran toward it.
An elderly nurse sat trembling in a wheelchair.
Tears filled her eyes the moment she saw me.
"You have your mother's eyes."
She handed me a yellowed envelope.
"I promised her..."
"...if you ever came..."
"...this belonged to you."
The envelope had only two words written on it.
For Ryan.
Inside was a letter.
"My precious son,"
"If you're reading this, I have survived longer than they expected."
"Your father never abandoned me."
"He searched for me every single year."
"Vanessa made sure every clue led somewhere else."
"She wanted Jonathan to believe I had run away."
"The truth kept both of you prisoners."
My vision blurred with tears.
Footsteps echoed down the hallway.
Slow.
Confident.
Vanessa appeared at the end of the corridor.
Elegant as ever.
Surrounded by armed guards.
She clapped slowly.
"Beautiful letter, isn't it?"
"You forged our entire lives," I whispered.
"No."
She smiled.
"I improved them."
She pointed toward a reinforced steel door.
"Go ahead."
"She's inside."
With shaking hands, I pulled the heavy door open.
A frail woman sat by the window, sunlight falling across her silver-streaked hair.
She looked up.
For a long moment, neither of us spoke.
Then she reached into her pocket.
She pulled out half of a small silver compass.
I instinctively reached into my own jacket.
Ever since childhood, I'd worn the matching half my father had given me.
The two pieces fit together perfectly.
Her hands began to shake.
"My little boy..."
She started to cry.
Before I could embrace her—
The hospital erupted with explosions.
Walls shook violently.
The ceiling cracked.
Vanessa laughed.
"If I can't control this family..."
"...no one will."
Smoke flooded the corridors.
The building had been rigged with explosives.
My mother grabbed my hand.
"We have to find your father!"
At that exact moment, through the smoke, I saw a familiar silhouette running toward us.
My father.
Bleeding.
Determined.
He had ignored every warning and come after me.
But behind him...
Emerging from the flames...
Vanessa raised a pistol.
She aimed directly at my father's back.
May you like
And before I could scream—
A gunshot echoed through the collapsing hospital.
