Chapter 5 - The Crypt beneath the AsylumWith Annie secured in a bulletproof safehouse guarded by his most trusted men, Alessandro drove like a demon toward Blackwood Manor—an abandoned psychiatric facility fifty miles north of the city.
According to the documents recovered from Dominic’s phone, this was where Sophia had been kept.
The asylum stood like a jagged shadow against the stormy night sky. Its windows were boarded up, and iron gates locked the perimeter. Alessandro cut the chains with a bolt cutter and slipped inside, flashlight in one hand, gun in the other.
The air inside was thick with dust, mold, and the unmistakable metallic scent of dry blood.
He moved down the echoing corridors, past rusted gurneys and shattered glass. Following a set of fresh footprints in the dust, he descended a spiral staircase into the deep basement—a reinforced subterranean bunker equipped with medical gear, heart monitors, and restraint straps.
This wasn't an asylum cell. It was an illegal lab.
Alessandro’s heart dropped into his stomach. On a metallic table lay a stack of medical files. He flipped through them frantically.
PATIENT: SOPHIA MORETTI STATUS: EXPERIMENTAL SURROGACY / SUBJECT STABLE NOTES: Subject successfully delivered female infant (Annie). Memory suppression drugs administered daily.
"Looking for answers, brother?"
Alessandro whipped around. Standing at the end of the corridor, flanked by four heavily armed mercenaries, was Julian. But next to Julian stood someone else—someone who made Alessandro’s gun drop an inch in sheer disbelief.
It was Victor, the family lawyer. But Victor wasn't wearing his suit. He was wearing a lab coat, holding a syringe filled with a clear fluid.
"Victor?" Alessandro whispered. "You?"
"Victor isn't just our lawyer, Alessandro," Julian said, stepping forward with a cold smile. "He’s a certified neuro-biologist. Father knew it, but you were always too focused on street fights and cargo docks to read the family's secret ledgers."
"Why?" Alessandro’s voice was dead, hollowed out by betrayal. "Why Sophia? Why my daughter?"
"Because Father was a fool!" Julian shouted, his calm demeanor finally shattering into madness. "He left eighty percent of the Moretti wealth to YOU because you were his favorite! I built the financial empire! I laundered the money! And what did I get? Scraps! The only way to overturn the will was to prove you were mentally unfit or to control your heir!"
Victor stepped forward, his eyes cold and calculating. "We took Sophia before the boat exploded, Alessandro. The woman who died on that boat was a body double. Sophia lived here for two years. She bore your child so we would have complete control over the lineage. But then... she escaped with the help of that wretched old woman, Ruth."
Alessandro felt a wave of nausea. "Where is Sophia now?"
Julian’s smile turned monstrously wide. "Oh, Alessandro... you really think she's dead, don't you? Look behind you."
Alessandro turned slowly. At the back of the room was a heavy steel door with a small reinforced glass window. Inside, illuminated by a single overhead bulb, sat a woman in a white dress, staring blankly at the wall, clutching a silver songbird pendant.
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"Sophia..." Alessandro breathed.
She was alive.
