Chapter 4 - The Woman Who Had Been Dead for Eleven Years
Emergency lights illuminated the foyer.
“Elena!”
“I have them!”
She dropped to the floor and pulled Noah and Eli against her.
Dr. Kim held Lucas.
Sebastian’s security team moved immediately.
Doors locked.
Windows secured.
The generator started.
The chandeliers returned.
Sebastian looked toward the staircase.
Empty.
“Noah,” he said. “Where did you see her?”
“Upstairs.”
“When?”
“When Mommy went with you.”
Sebastian turned toward Daniel.
His security chief looked horrified.
“I never left them.”
“Then how?”
Noah answered.
“She called me from the stairs.”
Sebastian unfolded the note.
Three words.
DON’T TRUST CELESTE.
Everyone looked toward Sebastian’s aunt.
Celeste stepped backward.
“That’s ridiculous.”
Sebastian held up the note.
“Recognize the handwriting?”
“No.”
Victor did.
His face changed.
“That’s Isabella’s.”
Celeste laughed nervously.
“Isabella is dead.”
Sebastian looked at her.
“So was Elena.”
Silence.
Celeste’s expression collapsed.
Sebastian ordered security to search the house.
Every room.
Every passage.
Every service corridor.
Twenty minutes later, they found an unlocked door behind the pantry.
It led to an old servant staircase.
Someone had used it recently.
Sebastian remembered playing there as a child.
His mother had shown him the passage.
Victor apparently had forgotten it existed.
The trail led to the garage.
One vehicle was missing.
Registered to Celeste.
Sebastian returned to the foyer.
“Where are your keys?”
Celeste said nothing.
“Where?”
“My purse.”
The purse was empty.
Sebastian looked at Daniel.
“Track the car.”
Celeste suddenly said, “Don’t.”
Sebastian turned.
“Why?”
She began crying.
Victor stared at his sister.
“What did you do?”
Celeste looked at him.
“What you were too weak to finish.”
Victor went still.
Sebastian’s voice lowered.
“Explain.”
Celeste laughed through tears.
“You all think Victor was the monster.”
Elena held Lucas closer.
“He forged my divorce.”
“Yes.”
“He framed me.”
“Yes.”
“He hid my pregnancy from Sebastian.”
“Yes.”
Celeste looked at her brother with contempt.
“But then he lost his nerve.”
Victor’s jaw tightened.
Celeste continued.
“Victor wanted Elena gone. He wanted Sebastian back under control. But he never wanted the children hurt.”
Sebastian stepped closer.
“And you did?”
“I wanted the family protected.”
“They were babies.”
“They were leverage.”
Sebastian’s expression became terrifyingly calm.
Elena touched his arm.
Not to restrain him.
To remind him the children were watching.
He breathed once.
Then again.
“What did you do?”
Celeste looked at Elena.
“I hired people to watch you.”
“The notes?”
“Yes.”
“The cars?”
“Yes.”
“The staged body?”
“Yes.”
Sebastian closed his eyes briefly.
Celeste had made him mourn Elena.
He remembered identifying the necklace recovered with the body.
Elena’s necklace.
The one he had given her on their first anniversary.
“How did you get her necklace?”
Celeste smiled faintly.
“Elena left half her possessions behind when she ran.”
Sebastian looked at Victor.
His father seemed genuinely sick.
“You let my son believe his wife was dead?”
Celeste snapped, “You started this.”
Victor said nothing.
Because she was right.
Sebastian looked at Celeste.
“Where is my mother?”
Her expression changed.
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying.”
“I thought she was dead until three years ago.”
“What happened?”
“She contacted me.”
“Why?”
“The ledger.”
Of course.
“She wanted it?”
“She wanted to destroy it.”
“And you?”
“I wanted to use it.”
Victor laughed bitterly.
“My own sister.”
Celeste looked at him.
“Don’t pretend morality suddenly matters to you.”
Sebastian stepped between them.
“Where is Isabella now?”
“I told you, I don’t know.”
Daniel entered.
“We located the car.”
“Where?”
“Old Vale Chapel.”
Sebastian looked at the message on Margaret’s phone.
Same location.
Trap.
Definitely.
But perhaps also his mother.
Elena saw the decision forming.
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“We’ve done this already.”
“Elena.”
“If Celeste’s people watched me for five years, I may recognize someone.”
He hated that she was right.
Victor said, “I’m coming too.”
Sebastian stared at him.
“No.”
“This began because of me.”
“Yes.”
“Then let me help end it.”
Sebastian considered.
Finally, he nodded.
The children remained at the mansion with Dr. Kim and twenty security officers.
Elena hated leaving them.
But whoever was behind Orpheus wanted the ledger.
If they could end the threat tonight, her sons might finally stop running.
The chapel stood on private Vale land north of the city.
Sebastian arrived with Elena, Victor, Daniel, and six security officers.
Celeste was kept under guard at the mansion.
The chapel door stood open.
Inside, candles burned.
Someone had prepared for them.
Sebastian entered first.
“Elena stay behind me.”
She almost argued.
Then she remembered she had promised herself to become smarter about danger, not merely stubborn.
They moved toward the altar.
A woman stepped from the shadows.
Sebastian stopped.
Elena knew instantly.
The eyes.
The posture.
The face from the portrait upstairs, older now.
Isabella Vale.
Sebastian did not speak.
Neither did she.
Eleven years separated them.
Then Isabella whispered, “My boy.”
Sebastian’s face broke.
Not dramatically.
One tiny fracture in the armor.
“Mother?”
She walked toward him.
Sebastian remained frozen until she touched his face.
Then he pulled her into his arms.
Elena looked away.
Some reunions were too private even when witnessed.
Victor did not look away.
His expression contained anger, relief, betrayal, and love.
“Isabella.”
She released Sebastian.
“Victor.”
“You let me bury an empty coffin.”
“You would have buried me in a real one eventually.”
Victor flinched.
Sebastian looked between them.
“Enough.”
He faced his mother.
“Why now?”
“Because your sons are in danger.”
“You knew about them.”
“I knew about the twins.”
“And Lucas?”
“Only recently.”
Elena stepped forward.
“You watched us.”
Isabella looked ashamed.
“I protected you when I could.”
“You terrified me.”
“I know.”
“Why didn’t you tell Sebastian?”
“Because every channel around him was compromised.”
Sebastian frowned.
“By Celeste?”
“Partly.”
“Who else?”
Isabella looked at Daniel.
Sebastian followed her gaze.
Daniel froze.
“No.”
Isabella’s voice hardened.
“Daniel Cross.”
Elena recognized the surname.
Vivian Cross.
Daniel was Vivian’s older brother.
Sebastian stared at the man who had protected him for twelve years.
Daniel slowly removed his weapon and placed it on the floor.
“Sebastian.”
“Tell me she’s wrong.”
Daniel said nothing.
Sebastian’s face went blank.
“You watched my children?”
“I kept Celeste from reaching them.”
“You knew they existed?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Three years.”
Sebastian closed his eyes.
Another betrayal.
Daniel continued.
“I couldn’t tell you.”
“You could have opened your mouth.”
“Celeste had people everywhere. She threatened Vivian.”
Sebastian laughed once.
Empty.
“So everyone protected someone except my children.”
Daniel looked down.
Isabella approached.
“The ledger proves everything.”
“Where is it?”
“I hid it.”
“Where?”
She looked at Elena.
“In something Celeste would never touch.”
Elena frowned.
“What?”
“Your wedding gift.”
Elena’s heart stopped.
Sebastian looked at her.
“The music box?”
Elena remembered.
Isabella had given her a handmade wooden music box the night before the wedding.
Elena had carried it when she fled.
It had traveled through every apartment.
Every city.
It currently sat in a storage unit outside Boston.
Isabella nodded.
“The ledger is inside the false base.”
Elena whispered, “I’ve had it for five years?”
“Yes.”
That explained everything.
Celeste had not followed Elena because of the children alone.
She believed Elena possessed the ledger.
“We go to Boston,” Sebastian said.
Isabella shook her head.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Celeste already knows.”
Sebastian’s phone rang.
The mansion.
He answered immediately.
“What happened?”
A security officer spoke.
Sebastian’s face changed.
Elena grabbed his arm.
“What?”
He lowered the phone.
“Celeste escaped.”
Elena went cold.
“How?”
Nobody answered.
Sebastian called again.
No response.
Then Elena’s phone vibrated.
A video.
She opened it.
Noah and Eli appeared on screen.
They were sitting together in the mansion nursery.
Unhurt.
Confused.
Behind them stood Celeste.
Lucas was in her arms.
Elena screamed his name.
The video ended.
A message appeared.
May you like
BRING THE MUSIC BOX.
OR CHOOSE WHICH SON YOU WANT BACK.
