CHAPTER 2 — The Song That Shouldn't Exist
The room became so quiet that even the heart monitor sounded deafening.
Claire stopped humming immediately.
"I'm sorry..."
She thought she'd frightened the little girl.
Instead...
Lily slowly turned her head.
Completely.
The first full movement anyone had seen in days.
Her dry lips barely opened.
"Again..."
Claire blinked.
"What?"
"The song..."
The whisper was almost impossible to hear.
"Please..."
Outside the hidden observation room...
Doctors exchanged stunned looks.
Dr. Price whispered,
"She initiated communication."
Nobody answered.
Everyone stared at Gabriel.
The feared mafia boss looked seconds away from collapsing.
Claire didn't know any of this.
She simply smiled gently.
Then hummed again.
The old Irish melody floated through the bedroom.
Lily closed her eyes.
Tiny tears slipped across her face.
Then...
Her fingers slowly reached toward Claire.
Not the doctors.
Not her father.
Not the nurses.
Claire.
The complete stranger.
Gabriel entered carefully.
His voice shook.
"Lily..."
The little girl immediately pulled her hand back.
Her breathing sped up.
Fear returned.
Claire quietly lifted one finger.
"Don't."
Nobody had ever interrupted Gabriel Varrick.
Not and remained employed.
Several guards instinctively stepped forward.
Gabriel stopped them.
"What?"
"You're standing too close."
Silence.
Claire continued softly.
"She isn't afraid of people."
"She's afraid of memories."
Gabriel frowned.
Claire pointed toward his expensive watch.
His wedding ring.
The bloodstained cufflinks he refused to replace.
"The last time she saw those..."
"...her mother died."
The sentence hit harder than a bullet.
Gabriel slowly looked at his own clothes.
Everything...
Everything he wore that day...
He was wearing again.
Without realizing it.
The same watch.
The same shoes.
The same cologne.
Even the same gray suit.
Every time Lily looked at him...
She wasn't seeing her father.
She was reliving the shooting.
Gabriel stepped backward.
His face lost all color.
How had no specialist noticed?
Claire continued humming.
Minutes later...
Lily accepted a tiny sip of water.
Only one sip.
But everyone in the room began crying.
Even Dr. Price.
The impossible had happened.
That night...
Gabriel ordered every employee to remain inside the penthouse.
Nobody left.
Nobody entered.
He wanted answers.
Who had recommended Claire?
Why had nobody discovered what she understood in one hour?
Then another question began haunting him.
How did Claire know...
That lullaby?
Meanwhile...
Housekeeper Eleanor entered the laundry room.
She locked the door.
Pulled out a hidden phone.
"The girl got through."
A woman's cold voice answered.
"I expected as much."
"What do we do now?"
"Keep her alive."
"...Until she sings again."
Eleanor frowned.
"Why?"
The reply chilled her.
"Because if it's the same lullaby..."
"...then Claire knows something she was never supposed to hear."
The call ended.
Eleanor slowly opened an old photograph hidden inside a detergent box.
It showed Gabriel...
His late wife Isabella...
A four-year-old Lily...
And another woman standing behind them.
A nanny.
Her face had been carefully burned away.
Upstairs...
Claire tucked Lily's blanket around her.
Half asleep...
The little girl whispered six words.
"They sold me once already..."
Claire froze.
Then Lily added...
"...don't let them take me again."
May you like
Someone outside the bedroom door...
Heard every word.
