CHAPTER 7 — The Woman Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
Smoke swallowed the executive boardroom.
Glass shattered across the polished floor.
Screams echoed through Bellamy Global as masked mercenaries poured into the building.
"Get down!" Tristan shouted.
He pulled Emma behind the massive conference table just as bullets ripped through the leather chairs where they had been standing seconds earlier.
Bellamy security returned fire, forcing the attackers to scatter.
The room became pure chaos.
Then...
Victor Hawthorne disappeared.
"He escaped!" one guard yelled.
Tristan cursed under his breath.
"No."
He looked toward the emergency hallway.
"This attack wasn't to kill us."
"It was to separate Emma from me."
At that exact moment, the emergency lights flickered.
A hidden side door slid open.
A woman wearing a dark coat stepped through the smoke.
She looked directly at Emma.
"Come with me."
Emma froze.
"Who are you?"
The woman slowly removed her hood.
Time stopped.
Emma's heart nearly burst from her chest.
It was the same face she had seen in the old photographs.
The same woman security cameras had captured entering her hospital locker room.
The same woman every official record claimed had died twenty years earlier.
"Mom...?"
The woman nodded, tears filling her eyes.
"My name is Sarah."
"And yes..."
"I am your mother."
Emma could barely breathe.
"No..."
"You died."
Sarah gave a heartbreaking smile.
"I had to."
Before Emma could ask another question, Sarah grabbed her hand.
"We have less than two minutes."
"They'll kill everyone if we stay."
Tristan stepped forward, keeping his eyes on Sarah.
"If you're really Sarah Carter..."
"Prove it."
Without hesitation, Sarah reached into her pocket and produced an old silver pocket watch.
Richard Bellamy's initials were engraved inside.
Tristan's face changed instantly.
"My father's watch..."
"He gave it to you?"
Sarah nodded.
"The night he helped us escape."
She looked at Emma with tears streaming down her cheeks.
"Richard saved us."
"He sacrificed everything."
"But someone betrayed him."
Emma whispered,
"Victor..."
Sarah slowly shook her head.
"No."
"The man who betrayed Richard..."
"...was much closer than Victor."
Before anyone could react, a sniper's bullet shattered the conference room wall.
Sarah instinctively shoved Emma to the floor.
The bullet tore through Sarah's shoulder.
She collapsed.
"Mom!"
Emma rushed toward her.
Sarah grabbed Emma's wrist with surprising strength.
"Listen carefully."
"The Bellamy family wasn't your enemy."
"They've been protecting you your entire life."
Emma stared at her in disbelief.
"Then who wants me dead?"
Sarah looked toward Tristan.
Then whispered five words that turned his blood cold.
"Your uncle is still alive."
Silence.
Tristan's face became completely expressionless.
"My uncle..."
"My father's younger brother died twenty-two years ago."
Sarah shook her head.
"No."
"He became someone else."
"He became..."
The building suddenly shook from a massive explosion below.
The ceiling cracked.
Concrete crashed around them.
Sarah's final words disappeared beneath the roar.
—
Forty-five minutes later...
The survivors escaped through an underground parking garage.
Bellamy Global burned behind them.
News helicopters filled the sky.
Authorities declared the explosion an act of terrorism.
Emma sat silently inside the SUV.
Her mother—alive.
Richard Bellamy—her protector.
Victor Hawthorne—not the mastermind.
Everything she believed had collapsed again.
Tristan quietly handed her a small velvet box recovered from the vault.
"My father left this too."
Inside lay an antique signet ring.
On the inner band were engraved three words.
The Third Brother Lives.
Tristan stared at the inscription.
His father had only one brother.
Or so he'd been told.
Maybe...
The Bellamy family had never had two sons.
May you like
Maybe there had always been three.
END OF CHAPTER 7
