The study door opened another inch.
I couldn’t see the person standing outside.
Robert pushed me behind the desk.
“Don’t make a sound.”
I wanted to trust him.
But twenty years of secrets had taught me one thing:
Trust was dangerous.
A shadow crossed the floor.
Then a voice came from the hallway.
“Robert.”
Robert went completely still.
I had never heard anyone say his name with that much authority.
“Come out,” the voice continued. “The girl isn’t going anywhere.”
Girl.
Not Sophia.
Not niece.
Girl.
Robert grabbed an old brass key from the drawer.
“There’s a passage beneath the library,” he whispered. “It leads outside.”
“Why are you helping me?”
“Because I failed your mother once.”
He looked at me.
“I won’t fail you twice.”
The door suddenly slammed open.
A bullet struck the desk.
Robert shoved me toward the bookshelf.
“RUN!”
I pulled the hidden lever he showed me.
The bookshelf moved.
Behind it was a narrow staircase descending into darkness.
I ran.
Behind me, I heard another gunshot.
Then Robert screamed.
I stopped.
“Uncle Robert!”
“KEEP GOING!”
I forced myself down the stairs.
At the bottom was a small underground room.
And someone was already waiting there.
A woman.
She was old, trembling, and holding a photograph.
She looked at me and began to cry.
“Oh my God.”
I stepped closer.
“Who are you?”
She raised the photograph.
It showed a young woman holding a baby.
The same photograph Robert had shown me.
But there was something different.
Written on the back were four words:
ELENA AND HER DAUGHTER.
The woman whispered:
“I’m Helena.”
My heart stopped.
The name my mother had written.
“You knew my mother?”
Helena nodded.
“I knew your real mother.”
I stared at her.
“Then tell me who I am.”
Helena reached for my necklace.
“The medallion doesn’t just prove where you came from.”
She turned it over.
A tiny compartment opened.
Inside was a miniature photograph.
A man holding a baby.
I recognized the face immediately.
Robert had shown me the same man.
My supposed dead father.
But Helena whispered:
“He isn’t your father.”
She pointed at the man beside him.
“He’s your father.”
I looked at the second man.
My knees almost gave out.
It was the man standing outside the study.
The man hunting me.
The man everyone said had died twenty years ago.
Helena gripped my hand.
“Your father survived the fire.”
Then she whispered:
“And he has been searching for you ever since.”
