CHAPTER 5 — The Girl Who Was Never Meant to Remember
The next morning, Dominic drove Chloe somewhere no one else knew existed.
No convoy.
No bodyguards.
Only a black sedan winding through quiet roads outside Boston.
Neither of them spoke for almost an hour.
Finally, the car stopped before an abandoned stone church.
Its stained-glass windows were broken.
The cemetery beside it had been swallowed by weeds.
"This place..." Chloe whispered.
"It feels familiar."
"It should."
Dominic unlocked the rusted front door.
Inside waited an elderly priest arranging old candles.
His hands trembled when he saw Dominic.
"You shouldn't have brought her."
"I had no choice."
The priest slowly approached Chloe.
His eyes filled with tears.
"My God..."
"You have your mother's eyes."
Chloe froze.
"You knew my mother?"
The priest hesitated.
"I knew the woman who raised you."
Silence.
"She wasn't your biological mother."
The words echoed through the empty church.
Chloe stepped backward.
"No."
"That's impossible."
The priest opened an ancient wooden chest.
Inside rested dozens of yellowed documents.
Birth certificates.
Hospital records.
Photographs.
One picture made Chloe stop breathing.
Two newborn girls.
Identical.
One wore a bracelet marked Baby A.
The other...
Baby B.
The priest pointed carefully.
"You..."
...were Baby B.
"Where's Baby A?"
No one answered.
Instead, Dominic handed her another photograph.
It showed a smiling couple holding one little girl.
Across the image, someone had written in red ink:
TARGET ELIMINATED.
Chloe stared in horror.
"They killed my sister?"
Dominic looked away.
"We don't know."
"No body was ever found."
Before anyone could speak again...
A church bell rang.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
The priest's face turned white.
"They've found us."
Outside...
More than twenty armed vehicles surrounded the church.
May you like
This time...
There would be no escape through the front door.
