Chapter 7 - My Father’s OfferVictor Sorel had spent twenty-seven years imagining our reunion.
I couldn’t.
Victor Sorel.
The criminal.
The hunter.
The man whose family Marcus belonged to.
My father.
“I met Victor when I was twenty-one,” Isabelle said. “He was charming. Educated. Generous. By the time I learned who he truly was, I was pregnant.”
She explained that Victor wanted a son.
A successor.
Instead he got me.
When Isabelle discovered his crimes, she tried to leave.
Victor let her.
At first.
Then he discovered she had copied his financial ledgers.
“He told me I could disappear,” she said, “but his evidence could not.”
So Isabelle ran.
She hid me.
Changed names.
Trusted the wrong people.
Trusted the right ones too late.
“Victor did not want Elena dead,” Adrien said quietly.
I turned.
“What?”
“He wanted the evidence.”
“Then why threaten my mother?”
“Because she was the key.”
On the screen Isabelle continued.
“If Victor is alive when you see this, he may try to convince you that blood makes you his heir. It does not.”
She leaned toward the camera.
“Blood is biology. Loyalty is choice.”
I cried harder.
That sounded like her.
Not the ghost Teresa had constructed.
My mother.
When the tape ended, another message appeared.
A date.
November 14, 2010.
Three days after Teresa told me my mother had died.
Adrien rewound.
“Wait.”
“What?”
“The reflection.”
In the dark glass behind Isabelle was a figure.
A woman.
Teresa.
She had been there.
So Isabelle was alive during the week of her supposed death.
Dominic searched the boxes until he found a folder labeled M.B.
Mara Bellini.
Teresa.
Inside was the truth.
Mara had once worked for Victor.
Not as a criminal mastermind.
As a twenty-two-year-old secretary.
She discovered Isabelle was being hunted.
She helped her escape.
Then Mara changed her identity to Teresa Hart and became my guardian.
For eleven years, Isabelle moved constantly while Teresa raised me publicly.
My mother remained alive in the shadows.
Watching.
Protecting.
And then something happened in November 2010.
There were no records after that.
No tapes.
No photographs.
Nothing.
“Maybe that’s when she actually died,” I whispered.
Adrien said nothing.
Dominic found another folder.
This one contained surveillance photographs taken only three months earlier.
A woman getting into a car in Montreal.
Face half hidden.
Same cheekbones.
Same eyes.
My mother.
I stopped breathing.
“No.”
Adrien took the photograph.
“Could be old.”
“The timestamp?”
“Can be altered.”
I touched the image.
“She’s alive.”
Hope is cruel when you have spent sixteen years learning to live without someone.
I wanted it.
I hated it.
I feared it.
Then the basement lights went out.
Dominic swore.
Gunshots echoed upstairs.
Adrien grabbed me and pulled me behind the shelves.
“Stay down.”
Footsteps thundered above us.
Dominic radioed security.
No response.
The generator should have activated.
It didn’t.
Someone knew the house.
Someone had planned this.
A red emergency light flickered.
Then a voice came through the speakers.
Marcus.
“Elena.”
My entire body froze.
Adrien’s expression became lethal.
Marcus laughed.
“Did you miss me?”
I forced myself to stand.
Adrien grabbed my wrist.
“No.”
I whispered, “He wants me afraid.”
“You should be afraid.”
“I am.”
That was the difference now.
I knew fear didn’t require obedience.
Marcus spoke again.
“You always were curious, baby.”
I walked toward the microphone mounted beside the door.
Adrien followed.
“What do you want?”
Marcus laughed.
“There she is.”
“What do you want?”
“The files.”
“You knew who I was.”
“Eventually.”
The answer stabbed deeper than expected.
“How long?”
“Before the coffee shop.”
I closed my eyes.
Every anniversary.
Every inside joke.
Every morning beside him.
Manufactured.
“You were assigned to me?”
“I was told to watch you.”
“By Victor?”
Silence.
Then Marcus said:
“Your father wanted to know whether Isabelle ever contacted you.”
“Did you love me?”
Adrien looked at me.
I didn’t care.
I needed the answer.
Marcus took too long.
“Sometimes.”
That hurt worse than no.
Then his voice hardened.
“But you were difficult.”
There it was.
The man I knew.
“You started asking questions. You wanted your own bank account. You wanted to leave.”
I almost laughed.
“I’m sorry my independence was inconvenient.”
“You think Viscari cares about you?”
Adrien’s jaw clenched.
Marcus continued.
“He cares about the evidence. Same as everyone.”
The basement door exploded inward.
Gunfire erupted.
Adrien pushed me behind the concrete wall.
Dominic fired back.
Men shouted.
Smoke filled the room.
Then someone grabbed me from behind.
A cloth covered my mouth.
I fought.
Bit.
Kicked.
A needle pierced my neck.
The last thing I saw was Adrien turning toward me.
His face changed.
“Elena!”
Then darkness.
I woke inside a car.
My wrists were bound.
Marcus sat beside me.
The bruise I had given him had darkened across his jaw.
He smiled.
“Welcome back.”
I jerked away.
“Where are we?”
“Going to meet your father.”
I stared at him.
“You’re insane.”
“No.”
He brushed wet hair from my face.
I recoiled.
Marcus’s smile vanished.
“You didn’t used to flinch.”
“You didn’t used to hit me.”
His expression hardened.
“You pushed me.”
The old sentence.
The old trap.
But it no longer worked.
“No, Marcus.”
He blinked.
“You hit me because you wanted to.”
His jaw tightened.
I continued.
“You threatened me because you wanted control. You followed me because someone paid you. And you called it love because that made you feel less pathetic.”
He slapped me.
My cheek burned.
I smiled through it.
That frightened him more than my crying ever had.
“You can’t control me anymore.”
Marcus leaned close.
“We’ll see.”
The car stopped.
A door opened.
I was dragged into an abandoned aircraft hangar near the water.
A man stood beneath the lights.
Silver hair.
Expensive coat.
Eyes exactly like mine.
Victor Sorel.
My father smiled.
“Elena.”
I felt nothing.
Maybe that was the strangest part.
He opened his arms as though expecting an embrace.
“My daughter.”
I looked straight at him.
May you like
“You don’t get to call me that.”
His smile slowly disappeared.
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