Chapter 8: The Third Child Was Never Missing
Emergency lights flashed red through the corridors.
Doctors screamed.
Police drew their weapons.
Emily searched desperately through the darkness.
"Daniel!"
Her newly found brother was gone.
Only the broken hospital bed remained.
Outside, a black helicopter lifted into the night sky.
Inside sat Daniel.
Not kidnapped.
Calmly watching the city disappear below him.
Across from him sat an elegant woman dressed in white.
She smiled.
"I told you they would find you eventually."
Daniel looked out the window without emotion.
"I never asked to be rescued."
The woman placed a folder on his lap.
Inside were hundreds of photographs.
Every birthday.
Every school graduation.
Every job interview.
Every heartbreak Emily had ever experienced.
Someone had been watching her...
Her entire life.
Daniel's voice was cold.
"She doesn't know the truth."
The woman nodded.
"Neither does your father."
Daniel closed the folder.
"For twenty-three years, they believed I was a prisoner."
He looked straight ahead.
"I wasn't."
"I was being trained."
Back at the hospital, William received an envelope left behind in the empty room.
Inside was a single photograph.
It showed three newborn babies lying side by side in the hospital nursery.
On the back, someone had written in faded black ink:
"Not twins..."
"Triplets."
William's hands trembled violently.
Sarah gasped.
Emily could barely breathe.
But then William noticed something even more terrifying.
One of the babies had been crossed out with a red X.
Another had been circled.
And beneath the third...
Someone had written just four chilling words:
May you like
"The heir must die first."
To be continued...
