CHAPTER 7 — The Woman Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
The first person Maxwell Buchanan recognized...
...wasn't the woman stepping out of the black sedan.
It was the silver locket hanging around her neck.
He had given it to his wife on their first wedding anniversary.
His breathing stopped.
The crowd continued applauding the opening of the Thomas Mason Foundation, completely unaware that history had just rewritten itself.
The woman removed her sunglasses.
Time froze.
"Sophia..." Maxwell whispered.
Juliet turned sharply.
Ivy looked from Maxwell to the stranger, confused.
The woman smiled through tears.
"My little girl..."
Ivy frowned.
She had seen countless photographs of her mother.
Every birthday.
Every Christmas.
Every bedtime story.
Yet she couldn't remember her face.
She had only been three years old when everyone said Sophia Buchanan died in a tragic car accident.
The little girl slowly walked forward.
"You... look like Mommy."
Sophia dropped to her knees.
"I am your mommy."
Silence swallowed the courtyard.
Even the reporters lowered their cameras.
Maxwell stood perfectly still.
He had imagined this moment a thousand times.
In every dream he ran to her.
In reality...
He couldn't move.
"You died," he finally said.
Sophia shook her head.
"No."
"They made you believe I did."
Inside the foundation's conference room, only four people remained.
Maxwell.
Sophia.
Juliet.
And Ivy.
Sophia placed a worn leather folder on the table.
"I've been hiding for twenty-eight years."
Juliet's eyes widened.
"Twenty-eight?"
Sophia nodded.
"It started long before I met Maxwell."
She opened the folder.
Inside were photographs of politicians, judges, police commanders, and businessmen.
Some were already in prison because of the flash drive Thomas Mason had protected.
Others had never been exposed.
"The organization Richard Hale worked for wasn't destroyed."
Maxwell's expression darkened.
"I killed its leadership."
"You killed one branch."
Sophia slid another photograph across the table.
Maxwell picked it up.
His face drained of color.
"No..."
The man in the picture wasn't an enemy.
It was someone Maxwell trusted.
His longtime attorney.
Edward Graves.
The man who had managed every Buchanan asset for fifteen years.
"He betrayed me?"
Sophia answered quietly.
"He betrayed everyone."
Juliet noticed something else inside the folder.
A faded birth certificate.
It wasn't Ivy's.
It wasn't Maxwell's.
It carried another name.
Lucas Mason.
She stared at Sophia.
"Why does my family name appear here?"
Sophia hesitated.
"I hoped I would never have to tell you."
Juliet's pulse quickened.
"What is it?"
Sophia looked directly into her eyes.
"The night your father saved Maxwell..."
"...he didn't rescue only one child."
Juliet felt the room spinning.
"There was another?"
Sophia nodded slowly.
"A baby."
"What happened to the baby?"
Sophia closed her eyes.
"No one knows."
Before anyone could speak again—
An explosion thundered outside.
The windows shook violently.
Smoke billowed into the sky.
Security alarms screamed across the property.
One of Maxwell's guards burst into the room.
"Boss!"
"What happened?"
"The evidence vault..."
He struggled to catch his breath.
"...it's gone."
Maxwell grabbed his jacket.
"The flash drive?"
The guard swallowed hard.
"No."
"Everything."
Every classified document.
Every witness list.
Every backup file.
Destroyed.
Or stolen.
As Maxwell rushed toward the exit, Juliet noticed a small white envelope lying beneath the conference room door.
No one had seen it arrive.
She picked it up carefully.
Inside was a single handwritten sentence.
"You won the battle... but you've just awakened the real enemy."
At the bottom of the page was a symbol none of them had ever seen before.
A black crown with a crimson rose through its center.
Sophia looked at it once...
...and turned pale.
"I know that symbol."
Maxwell looked at her.
"Who are they?"
Sophia's voice was barely above a whisper.
"The people even Richard Hale feared."
The lights suddenly went out.
May you like
And somewhere inside the darkened building...
A child screamed.
