Chapter 3 - The Dead Woman Upstairs
Sebastian reached the staircase first.
Victor shouted his name.
Sebastian ignored him.
Elena followed until he turned.
“Stay with the children.”
“No.”
“Elena.”
“If someone in this house knows about my sons, I’m not waiting downstairs.”
He looked at Noah and Eli.
They were frightened again.
Sebastian called his security chief.
“Daniel stays with them.”
Elena hesitated.
Noah squeezed her hand.
“I’ll protect Eli.”
Sebastian looked at him.
“No.”
Noah frowned.
Sebastian crouched.
“You’re five. Protecting everyone is not your job.”
Noah seemed genuinely confused by the idea.
Sebastian continued.
“That’s mine.”
Something in Elena broke a little.
She kissed both boys and handed sleeping Lucas to Dr. Kim, who had agreed to remain.
Then she followed Sebastian upstairs.
Victor followed.
So did Adrian.
Celeste and Vivian remained below.
Margaret refused to move.
The locked bedroom stood at the end of the east corridor.
Isabella Vale’s room.
Sebastian’s mother had supposedly died in a boating accident eleven years earlier.
Her body had never been recovered.
Victor had held a funeral anyway.
Sebastian had been twenty-seven.
He had not entered the room since.
The door was locked.
Sebastian stared at it.
Another sound came from inside.
A drawer closing.
Victor whispered, “Impossible.”
Sebastian looked at him.
“You have the key.”
“No.”
“It’s your house.”
“I ordered the room sealed.”
Sebastian took a key ring from Adrian.
Adrian looked startled.
“Master key.”
The lock opened.
Sebastian pushed the door.
Dust covered the furniture.
White sheets draped the bed.
His mother’s portrait still stood on a dresser.
For a moment, nothing moved.
Then Elena noticed the curtain.
It shifted.
Sebastian crossed the room and pulled it aside.
No one.
The window was open.
A narrow balcony extended outside.
Sebastian stepped onto it.
Empty.
But a rope hung from the railing.
Someone had escaped.
Fresh marks scarred the stone.
Elena looked around.
“Someone was living here.”
Sebastian followed her gaze.
A glass of water.
Fresh.
A half-burned candle.
A phone charger plugged into the wall.
Victor looked stunned.
“I didn’t know.”
Sebastian believed him.
That frightened Elena more.
Someone had been operating inside Victor Vale’s own house without his knowledge.
Adrian opened a drawer.
Inside were photographs.
Hundreds.
Elena.
Sebastian.
Noah.
Eli.
Lucas.
Elena rushed forward.
The earliest photograph showed her pregnant in Philadelphia.
Another showed her leaving a grocery store in Vermont.
Another showed Noah and Eli at two years old.
Another showed their preschool.
Another showed Elena entering Dr. Kim’s office while pregnant with Lucas.
Someone had followed them for years.
Sebastian picked up one photograph.
Lucas’s ultrasound.
His hands shook.
“Who had access to this?”
Elena whispered, “Almost nobody.”
On the back was one word.
ORPHEUS.
Victor sat down.
Sebastian looked at him.
“You really didn’t know.”
“No.”
It was the first honest thing Victor had said all day.
They searched the room.
Behind Isabella’s portrait was a small digital safe.
Sebastian tried combinations.
Nothing.
Elena studied the portrait.
Isabella Vale had been beautiful.
Dark hair.
Intelligent eyes.
Sebastian had those eyes.
“What date did she die?”
“May nineteenth.”
Sebastian entered 0519.
Incorrect.
“Your birthday?”
Incorrect.
Victor’s?
Incorrect.
Elena looked at him.
“What mattered most to her?”
Sebastian almost laughed.
“I thought I did.”
“Then try the day you met me.”
He stared.
“Why?”
“You told me once your mother said I was the first person who made you look happy.”
Sebastian remembered.
Isabella had met Elena at a charity auction.
She had watched Sebastian follow Elena around the room pretending he was not following her.
Later she told him, Marry that woman before she realizes she can do better.
Sebastian entered the date.
The safe clicked.
Victor whispered, “My God.”
Inside were three things.
A passport.
Cash.
And a letter.
The passport belonged to Isabella Vale.
Issued nine years after her supposed death.
Sebastian sat down.
Elena touched his shoulder.
He did not move away.
He opened the letter.
It was addressed to him.
Sebastian,
If you are reading this, then Victor’s plan failed or mine did.
Your father will tell you I betrayed him.
He will be right.
But not for the reason he thinks.
There are things inside this family that should have died with my generation.
You wanted to leave.
I wanted you to succeed.
Orpheus was created to protect that possibility.
Sebastian stopped.
Victor stepped closer.
“Continue.”
Sebastian did.
But Orpheus was compromised.
Someone learned Elena was pregnant.
Someone who believed your children could become leverage against you.
I tried to move Elena without telling Victor.
I failed.
If she disappeared, understand this: she was never your enemy.
Find the ledger.
Trust no one who already knows it exists.
Mother.
Sebastian lowered the paper.
Victor looked furious.
“She was alive.”
Sebastian looked at him.
“You knew she wanted out too.”
“I knew she disagreed with me.”
“You told me she died.”
“I believed she did.”
“Did you?”
Victor did not answer.
Sebastian put the letter into his jacket.
“What ledger?”
Victor’s face changed.
Sebastian saw it.
“You know.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“That means it matters more than anything else.”
Victor walked toward the door.
Sebastian blocked him.
“What ledger?”
Victor stared at his son.
“The Vale ledger.”
“What is in it?”
“Names.”
“Whose?”
“Everyone.”
Elena felt sick.
Victor continued reluctantly.
“Politicians. Judges. Executives. Police officials. People who owed us favors. People we paid. People we protected.”
Sebastian’s expression darkened.
“I destroyed those operations years ago.”
“You destroyed your operations.”
Victor glanced toward the photographs.
“Someone kept mine.”
Sebastian understood.
The ledger was power.
Enough power to control the family.
Enough power to destroy it.
“Where is it?”
Victor shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
“Mother did.”
“Yes.”
“And someone has been watching Elena because they think she knows.”
Victor looked at Elena.
“Apparently.”
Elena remembered the years of strange cars.
Unknown calls.
Apartments that suddenly felt unsafe.
She had blamed Victor.
Maybe she had been running from someone else all along.
They returned downstairs.
The DNA results arrived shortly after midnight.
Dr. Kim opened them.
Elena already knew.
Sebastian probably did too.
Still, hearing it changed everything.
“Sebastian Vale is the biological father of Noah Mercer, Eli Mercer, and Lucas Mercer.”
Silence.
Sebastian closed his eyes.
Three children.
Three sons.
He had become a father five years earlier and had learned it in one sentence.
Noah watched him.
“Are you our dad?”
Elena’s breath caught.
Sebastian crouched.
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you come before?”
No accusation.
Just confusion.
Sebastian looked toward Elena.
Then back at Noah.
“Because I didn’t know where you were.”
“Mom knew.”
“Yes.”
“Did she hide us?”
Elena closed her eyes.
Sebastian answered carefully.
“Your mom kept you safe.”
Noah considered that.
“From you?”
Sebastian’s voice became quieter.
“Sometimes she thought she had to.”
Elena looked at him.
He could have blamed her.
He did not.
Eli approached.
“Do you live here?”
“Yes.”
“Is that piano yours?”
Sebastian almost smiled.
“Everything in this house technically belongs to me.”
Eli’s eyes widened.
“The cookies?”
Sebastian looked toward the kitchen.
“Especially the cookies.”
Eli smiled.
The tension broke for three precious seconds.
Then Margaret screamed.
Everyone turned.
She stood beside the window holding her phone.
A photograph had appeared on the screen.
Taken seconds earlier.
Through the mansion window.
It showed Sebastian crouching beside his sons.
Beneath it were six words.
THE HEIRS ARE FINALLY ALL TOGETHER.
Sebastian rose.
Security rushed outside.
No one was found.
Elena’s heart pounded.
Sebastian took the phone.
Another message arrived.
BRING ISABELLA’S LETTER TO THE OLD VALE CHAPEL.
Then another.
COME ALONE OR THE CHILDREN PAY.
Sebastian looked toward Elena.
She shook her head.
“You’re not going alone.”
“I have to.”
“That’s exactly what they want.”
He knew she was right.
But he also knew something else.
Whoever had sent the message knew about the letter almost immediately after Sebastian found it.
Only the people inside the mansion knew.
He slowly looked around the room.
Victor.
Celeste.
Adrian.
Vivian.
Margaret.
Daniel.
Dr. Kim.
Elena.
His children.
One of the adults was still communicating with Orpheus.
Then Noah tugged his jacket.
“Dad?”
It was the first time the boy had called him that.
Sebastian looked down.
Noah held something.
A folded piece of paper.
“Where did you get this?”
“A lady gave it to me.”
Every adult froze.
“What lady?”
“The old lady upstairs.”
Sebastian’s face drained of color.
“What did she look like?”
Noah pointed toward the staircase.
May you like
“She said she was your mom.”
Then the lights went out.
