CHAPTER 2 — THE BLOODY KEY
Daniel picked up the silver key with trembling fingers.
It was small, old, and stained with blood.
Emily’s blood.
“Daniel…”
Her voice came from behind him.
He turned around.
Emily stood in the doorway, pale as a ghost, her wedding dress torn slightly at the shoulder.
“Tell me the truth,” Daniel said. “Now.”
Emily looked down at the key in his hand.
Then she whispered, “That key opens the room your family told me never to enter.”
Daniel’s chest tightened.
“The locked room in my father’s house?”
Emily nodded.
Before Daniel could ask more, Michael appeared at the end of the hallway.
His face changed the second he saw the key.
“Give that to me,” Michael said coldly.
Daniel stepped back.
“Why?”
Michael’s smile disappeared.
“Because if you open that room… you’ll wish you had never married her.”
The music from the reception continued downstairs. Guests were laughing, dancing, drinking champagne.
But upstairs, the real wedding had turned into a nightmare.
Emily grabbed Daniel’s arm.
“Don’t trust him,” she whispered. “He’s been lying to you for years.”
Michael laughed.
“Me? Lying?” He pointed at Emily. “Ask your perfect bride why she was in my room last night.”
Daniel turned to Emily.
Her eyes filled with tears.
“I wasn’t in his room because I wanted to be,” she said. “I was looking for proof.”
“Proof of what?” Daniel asked.
Emily swallowed hard.
“Proof that your brother killed your first fiancée.”
The hallway went silent.
Daniel’s face drained.
His first fiancée, Anna, had died three years ago in a car accident. Everyone said she lost control during a storm.
Daniel had believed it.
He had mourned her.
He had buried her.
But Emily continued.
“Anna didn’t die in an accident. She found something in that locked room. Something your family has hidden for years.”
Michael suddenly lunged forward.
Daniel shoved him back.
“Don’t touch her.”
Michael’s eyes turned dark.
“You have no idea what she’s doing to you.”
Then the lights went out.
The entire mansion fell into darkness.
Downstairs, guests screamed.
Emily grabbed Daniel’s hand and pulled him toward the old east wing of the house.
They ran through the dark hallway, past family portraits, past locked cabinets, past the memories Daniel had never questioned.
Finally, they reached the forbidden room.
Daniel pushed the bloody key into the lock.
Click.
The door opened.
Inside, the air smelled like dust, perfume, and something rotten.
Daniel stepped inside and froze.
The walls were covered with photos.
Photos of Anna.
Photos of Emily.
Photos of Daniel.
And in the center of the room was a wedding dress sealed inside a glass case.
Anna’s wedding dress.
Still stained with blood.
Emily covered her mouth.
Daniel couldn’t breathe.
Then he saw a note pinned to the dress.
It was written in Anna’s handwriting.
“Daniel, if you are reading this, your brother is not the monster.”
Daniel slowly turned around.
Michael was standing in the doorway.
His eyes were full of tears.
Then a woman’s voice came from the darkness behind him.
“Finally.”
Daniel knew that voice.
His mother stepped into the room, holding a gun.
May you like
And she was smiling.
TO BE CONTINUED...
