Chapter 4: "The Mansion Went Dark—Then the Billionaire Heard the Voice of the Woman He Buried Five Years Ago"
Darkness swallowed the Davis mansion.
For one endless second, nobody moved.
Then chaos exploded.
Security guards drew their weapons.
Federal agents shouted commands.
Housekeepers screamed.
Somewhere upstairs, a frightened child cried out.
"Daddy!"
Spencer's heart stopped.
"SOPHIE!"
He bolted toward the grand staircase, taking two steps at a time.
Three guards rushed after him.
Elena was already running.
She didn't think.
She simply followed the sound of Sophie's voice.
The emergency lights suddenly flickered to life, casting the mansion in an eerie red glow.
Every hallway looked unfamiliar.
Every shadow seemed alive.
One of the agents spoke urgently into his radio.
"Backup generator has been sabotaged."
"Repeat—someone disabled it from inside the estate."
Another answered,
"We've lost all exterior cameras."
A third voice interrupted.
"Motion sensors are offline."
Spencer clenched his fists.
"They're already here."
Elena reached Sophie's bedroom first.
The door stood wide open.
The curtains fluttered in the wind.
The window...
Was open.
Her blood turned cold.
"Sophie?"
No answer.
She rushed inside.
The bed was empty.
The blanket lay on the floor.
Mr. Cuddles had been thrown into the corner.
For one horrifying moment, Elena thought they were too late.
Then...
She heard a tiny hiccup.
Not outside.
Inside the room.
She dropped to her knees.
The sound came from beneath the bed.
"Sophie?"
A trembling voice answered.
"Elena?"
Elena almost burst into tears.
She pulled back the blanket hanging over the side.
Sophie crawled out, shaking uncontrollably.
"I remembered what you said."
"What did I say?"
"If I was ever scared..."
"...hide somewhere no one expects."
Elena hugged her tightly.
"You were so brave."
Just then Spencer burst into the room.
The moment Sophie saw him, she ran into his arms.
Neither of them could speak.
For nearly a minute, they simply held each other.
A security officer suddenly shouted from the hallway.
"Sir!"
Spencer looked up.
"What?"
"The intruders never entered the bedroom."
"What?"
"The window was opened..."
"...from the outside."
He pointed toward the garden.
"There are footprints."
"But they stop halfway."
Another officer added,
"No fingerprints."
"No DNA."
"No fibers."
"It's like whoever came here..."
"...vanished."
Spencer frowned.
"No."
"They wanted us to think Sophie had been taken."
Elena slowly nodded.
"It was a distraction."
"So someone else could do something."
The room became silent.
Everyone turned toward the hidden camera Elena had discovered earlier.
It was gone.
Someone had retrieved it during the blackout.
The evidence had disappeared.
Which meant...
The attackers hadn't come for Sophie.
Not yet.
They had come to erase evidence.
Downstairs, technicians worked frantically to restore the mansion's systems.
One by one, computer monitors came back online.
Then every screen suddenly flashed the same message.
A black background.
White letters.
YOU CANNOT HIDE HER FOREVER.
The words disappeared.
Then a video began playing.
Every face in the security room froze.
The footage showed Sophie's nursery.
Five years earlier.
A tiny newborn sleeping peacefully.
A young woman gently rocking the crib.
Long dark hair.
Soft smile.
Kind eyes.
Spencer staggered backward.
"No..."
"It can't be..."
Elena looked at him.
"You know her?"
Spencer's lips trembled.
"That's my wife."
The room fell silent.
The woman smiled at the baby.
Then looked directly into the hidden camera.
Almost as if she knew she was being watched.
The recording ended.
The date appeared at the bottom.
Five years ago.
Exactly three weeks before...
Emily Davis had supposedly died in a boating accident.
One federal investigator whispered,
"This footage has never been released."
Spencer's breathing became uneven.
"It was destroyed."
"I watched the police destroy every copy."
The technician shook his head.
"Apparently..."
"Someone kept one."
Before anyone could process what they had seen, another file opened automatically.
An audio recording.
Static filled the room.
Then...
A woman's voice.
Soft.
Gentle.
Spencer dropped to his knees.
Because he would have recognized that voice anywhere.
"Emily..."
Tears filled his eyes.
No one spoke.
The recording continued.
"Spencer... if you're hearing this... something has gone terribly wrong."
The room froze.
"I don't have much time."
"You were right."
"Someone inside the company betrayed us."
Spencer stared at the speakers in disbelief.
"No..."
"If anything happens to me..."
"Don't trust anyone."
The audio crackled.
Then came six words that changed everything.
"Not even the people you love."
The recording suddenly ended.
Silence.
Absolute silence.
Spencer couldn't breathe.
Emily had died believing someone close to them was a traitor.
But she had never told him.
Or...
Had never been given the chance.
The lead FBI agent slowly looked at Spencer.
"Mr. Davis..."
"I need to ask you something."
Spencer wiped his face.
"What?"
"How certain are you..."
"...that your wife actually died?"
The question hit the room like an explosion.
Spencer stared at him.
"I buried her."
"Did you see the body?"
Spencer opened his mouth.
Then stopped.
Because he suddenly remembered.
The boat explosion.
The fire.
The authorities.
The closed casket funeral.
He had never actually seen Emily after the accident.
Not once.
His hands began shaking uncontrollably.
"I..."
"I don't know."
Just then...
One of the computer experts shouted from across the room.
"Sir!"
"We traced the hacker."
Spencer turned sharply.
"Where is he?"
The expert looked pale.
"It's not a he."
"What?"
"The signal..."
"...is coming from inside this mansion."
Every person in the room instinctively looked at everyone else.
Someone among them...
Was communicating with the people hunting Sophie.
Then, from somewhere deep inside the mansion...
A grandfather clock struck midnight.
One...
Two...
Three...
On the twelfth chime...
A hidden wall behind the clock slowly slid open by itself.
Revealing a dark underground passage that none of them knew existed.
And from the darkness...
Came the unmistakable sound of footsteps.
Someone...
May you like
Was walking toward them.
End of Chapter 4.
