Chapter 3 - The Ghost from OverseasUncle Alan didn't answer immediately. He let the police officers lead Edric past him into the hallway, where Edric spat a string of foul curses before being dragged around the corner out of sight.
Only when the heavy boots and shouting receded down the corridor did Uncle Alan turn his gaze toward our beds. His eyes swept over the bruised skin on Chloe’s arms, lingered on the blood still dried on my lip, and then tracked down to Clara, who was just beginning to stir groggily near the sink.
When his eyes finally met mine, his jaw tightened so hard a muscle twitched in his cheek.
"Faye," he said softly, walking over and gently placing a warm, steady hand over my trembling fingers. "Chloe. I'm so, so sorry I didn't get here sooner. I tried. God knows I tried."
"Uncle Alan..." Chloe’s voice was a weak, breathless rasp as she slowly opened her eyes, turning her head toward him with tears streaming down her pale cheeks. "How... how did you find us?"
Uncle Alan pulled up a metal stool, sitting down between our two beds and gently squeezing both of our hands at once.
"Your father was a brilliant man, girls," Alan explained, his voice low and steady. "Before he died, he knew Edric was circling your mother like a vulture. He couldn't legally stop your mother from remarrying, but he set up protocols that even Edric's paranoid mind could never crack. Every recording your phone uploaded to the encrypted cloud didn't just go into storage—it was programmed to trigger an emergency data-drop to my international legal team the moment a specific decibel threshold of violence or certain keywords were detected."
I let out a long, shuddering breath, the tension of the past three years finally beginning to drain from my shoulders. "The attic phone... it really worked."
"It worked better than you know," Alan said, a grim smile touching his lips. "That phone wasn't just recording tonight. It pulled data going back months. Financial records, text messages, medical intake logs from clinics where your mother was forced to lie about your injuries. Edric thought he was isolating you, but he was actually building his own prison cell, brick by digital brick."
Across the room, Clara groaned, pushing herself up from the floor with a shaky hand. She wiped blood from her lip, her eyes wide with terror as she looked at Uncle Alan.
"Alan... please," Clara whimpered, crawling toward him on her hands and knees like a broken woman. "You have to help me. Edric forced me! He threatened me every single day! If I didn't lie to the doctors, if I didn't turn up the television, he said he'd—he'd—"
Uncle Alan didn't look down at her with anger. He looked at her with absolute, suffocating indifference.
"Clara," Alan interrupted, his voice cutting through her hysterics like a scalpel. "You had a choice every single day for three years. You chose the safety of his money and his lies over the lives of your own children. Don't waste your breath playing the victim now. The federal investigators are already executing a search warrant on the house."
Clara froze, her mouth hanging open in silent horror. "A... a search warrant?"
"Edric didn't just abuse my brother's daughters," Alan said coldly, standing up to tower over her. "Federal tax evasion, corporate fraud, and the suspicious circumstances surrounding my brother's 'accidental' death three years ago. The police are tearing every floorboard out of that house right now."
As if on cue, Dr. Marcus Cooper hurried back into the room, holding a thick Manila folder. He looked at Uncle Alan, then at Chloe and me, before letting out a relieved sigh.
"The security footage and the broadcasted audio have been securely archived, Mr. Morgan," Dr. Cooper said professionally. "Social services and the state prosecutor's office have been notified. The girls are officially under state protection, and medical clearance for discharge can be granted whenever you're ready."
"We're ready now, Doctor," I said, sitting up straight in the bed, looking over at my twin sister.
Chloe was sitting up too, color finally returning to her cheeks. She looked at me, a watery smile breaking through her exhaustion, and squeezed my hand twice.
Don't give up.
May you like
I squeezed back three times. We won.
Little did we know, Edric Kaine was not a man who went down quietly, and the network of corruption he had built extended far deeper into the city than any of us could possibly imagine.
