CHAPTER 6 — The Father's Secret
CHAPTER 6 — The Father's Secret
By sunrise our estate had become a fortress.
Doctors examined the twins again.
Nutritionists prepared careful meal plans.
Psychologists spoke gently with every rescued child until their families could be found.
Emiliana never left our son and daughter.
She brushed their hair.
Read them stories.
Watched them sleep.
Every ordinary moment became sacred.
I envied her ability to remain in the present.
Mine had already returned to the past.
Something still didn't fit.
Daniel had always been ambitious.
But he wasn't brilliant.
He couldn't have coordinated hospitals, insurance companies, morgues, shell corporations, and forged government records.
Someone far more powerful had built the machine.
Marcus entered carrying a sealed evidence box recovered from Room 17.
"You'll want to see this alone."
Inside were financial ledgers.
Encrypted payment schedules.
And one old leather notebook.
Its cover was cracked with age.
Inside the front page was a familiar signature.
I stopped breathing.
William Ashford.
My father.
Impossible.
My father had died eight years earlier.
I opened the notebook with trembling hands.
The first entries described legitimate business meetings.
Land acquisitions.
Construction projects.
Nothing unusual.
Then the handwriting changed.
Shorter.
Sharper.
More urgent.
"Daniel asks too many questions."
"Lucas is too honest."
"The Foundation must never be exposed."
Foundation?
I turned another page.
There it was.
A newspaper clipping.
Thirty years old.
Several wealthy businessmen standing together at the opening of a children's charity.
One face had been circled in red.
Not my father.
Another man.
On the back someone had written three words.
Never trust Victor.
Marcus frowned.
"We identified him."
He handed me another file.
The circled man was Victor Soren.
A billionaire philanthropist.
Founder of children's hospitals.
International humanitarian.
Recipient of countless awards.
Publicly...
A saint.
Privately...
We had no idea.
Then Marcus placed one final photograph on the table.
It had been hidden inside the notebook.
It showed my father.
Daniel.
Me.
Taken twenty-five years ago.
Standing behind us was Victor Soren, smiling with one hand resting on Daniel's shoulder.
On the back of the photograph was a handwritten message.
"One son will inherit the empire."
"The other will inherit the debt."
Suddenly, the study door burst open.
Our butler, pale as a ghost, struggled to speak.
"Sir..."
"You need to come outside."
Immediately.
I rushed to the front entrance.
Parked beyond the security gates sat a single black limousine.
No license plates.
No driver.
Only a small velvet box resting on the hood.
The bomb squad cleared it first.
No explosives.
Inside the box lay one object.
My father's gold signet ring.
The ring buried with him.
Folded beneath it was a handwritten note.
Welcome to the game, Lucas.
Your father never escaped it.
May you like
Neither will you.
— Victor Soren
