For one terrible second, Clara couldn’t understand what she was seeing.
Gabriel was on the floor.
There was blood beneath him.
Ethan was kneeling beside him.
Victoria stood frozen near the desk, one hand pressed against her mouth.
And somewhere beyond the study, footsteps were running.
“Ethan!”
Clara dropped beside him.
“Get away from the door!”
Ethan barely heard her.
His hands were already pressing against Gabriel’s wound.
“Gabriel.”
The older man opened his eyes.
“Go.”
“No.”
“Nathaniel…”
“Don’t call me that.”
Gabriel coughed.
Blood appeared at the corner of his mouth.
“You need to leave.”
Ethan shook his head.
“I am not leaving you.”
Gabriel grabbed his wrist.
His grip was surprisingly strong.
“Listen to me.”
Another set of footsteps thundered through the hallway.
Closer.
Ethan looked toward the door.
Then back at Gabriel.
Gabriel’s eyes shifted toward Clara.
“Take her.”
Clara shook her head.
“We’re not leaving you.”
Gabriel gave a faint smile.
“You have your mother’s courage.”
Clara’s throat tightened.
“You knew her.”
“I loved her.”
He looked at Ethan.
“And I failed her.”
Ethan’s eyes filled.
“You didn’t.”
Gabriel’s expression softened.
“I did.”
Then he pushed the key into Ethan’s hand.
“Bellmont.”
Ethan closed his fingers around it.
“What am I looking for?”
“Room seven.”
“Room seven?”
“Under the chapel.”
Clara stared at him.
“There isn’t a chapel at Bellmont.”
Gabriel smiled weakly.
“That’s why nobody will look there.”
A shadow moved beneath the study door.
Gabriel’s expression changed.
“Now.”
Ethan stood.
Clara grabbed his arm.
“What about him?”
Gabriel looked at Victoria.
“She’ll handle it.”
Victoria shook her head.
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
The door handle began moving.
Gabriel whispered:
“Go.”
Ethan hesitated.
Then Clara pulled him toward the hidden passage behind the bookcase.
He followed.
Victoria remained beside Gabriel.
The bookcase swung shut.
Darkness swallowed them.
The passage was narrow.
Old.
Dusty.
Clara could barely see Ethan ahead of her.
“Where does this go?”
“I don’t know.”
“You grew up here.”
“I didn’t know this existed.”
They hurried down the stone corridor.
Behind them came muffled shouting.
Then another gunshot.
Clara flinched.
“Gabriel.”
Ethan kept moving.
“He told us to go.”
“We can’t just leave him.”
“If we stay, his sacrifice means nothing.”
She hated that he was right.
They reached a wooden door.
Ethan pushed it open.
They emerged into the estate’s old wine cellar.
Clara recognized the smell immediately.
Wood.
Dust.
Damp stone.
Ethan closed the door behind them.
They stood in silence.
Then Clara grabbed his jacket.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Let me see.”
“Clara—”
“Ethan.”
He raised his hands.
“I’m fine.”
She checked his face, his shoulders, his chest.
No blood.
No obvious wound.
She exhaled.
“Okay.”
He looked at her.
“You were scared.”
“So were you.”
“Yes.”
She studied him.
“You almost died.”
“I wasn’t shot.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Ethan understood.
He looked away.
“I thought I was going to lose him.”
Clara stepped closer.
“You just met him.”
“He’s my father.”
“You’ve known him for less than an hour.”
“I’ve known his absence my entire life.”
That silenced her.
Ethan leaned against the cellar wall.
For a moment, he looked younger.
Not like the powerful businessman.
Not like the man who had controlled entire negotiations.
Just a son.
A son who had finally found his father.
Only to watch him fall.
Clara touched his arm.
“He might still be alive.”
Ethan looked at her.
“You don’t know that.”
“No.”
“But you’re hoping.”
“Yes.”
He gave a weak smile.
“So am I.”
Then they heard a door slam upstairs.
Ethan straightened.
“We need to leave.”
“Where?”
“My old apartment.”
“Why?”
“Because nobody knows I still have access to it.”
Clara frowned.
“Apparently everyone knows everything about you.”
“Not everything.”
He took the key Gabriel had given him from his pocket.
He stared at it.
“Room seven.”
Clara looked at him.
“What do you think is there?”
“The truth.”
“That seems to be the most dangerous thing in your life.”
“It usually is.”
They left through the rear entrance.
Ethan drove.
Clara sat beside him.
Neither spoke for several minutes.
Finally, she asked:
“Do you think Gabriel survived?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re going back.”
It wasn’t a question.
“Yes.”
“When?”
Clara turned toward him.
“I’m going with you.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Clara.”
“You don’t get to protect me by excluding me anymore.”
He looked at her.
“You’re not listening.”
“I am.”
“No, you’re not.”
His voice sharpened.
“If those people were willing to shoot Gabriel, they won’t hesitate to shoot you.”
Clara didn’t flinch.
“Then we’ll be careful.”
“This isn’t a game.”
“I know.”
“You could die.”
“So could you.”
Silence.
Ethan gripped the steering wheel.
“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.”
Clara looked at him.
“What?”
“Losing you again.”
Her heart skipped.
She turned toward the window.
“Don’t say things like that.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know what to do with them.”
He was quiet.
Then:
“I don’t know what to do with them either.”
The apartment was smaller than Clara remembered.
They had lived there for almost two years.
Back when Ethan was twenty-three.
Back when they believed love was enough.
Clara stood in the doorway.
Memories rushed toward her.
The old couch.
The kitchen.
The little balcony.
The wall where she had once pinned photographs of their future.
Ethan noticed her expression.
“I haven’t been here in years.”
“Neither have I.”
He walked inside.
Dust covered everything.
The furniture remained.
The memories remained.
Everything except them.
Clara walked toward the bedroom.
A photograph still sat on the bedside table.
She picked it up.
It was them.
Young.
Happy.
Naive.
She smiled despite herself.
“You kept this?”
Ethan looked at it.
“I forgot it was here.”
“You’re lying.”
He smiled.
“Maybe.”
She placed it back.
“Where would you hide something?”
Ethan thought.
“My father used to say that the safest place to hide a secret was somewhere people remembered but never looked.”
Clara frowned.
“That’s cryptic.”
“He loved being cryptic.”
She walked toward the bookshelf.
“Maybe here?”
“No.”
“The floor?”
“No.”
“Under the bed?”
“Too obvious.”
She turned.
“Then where?”
Ethan looked around.
His eyes stopped.
“The kitchen.”
“Why?”
“When we lived here, my father visited once.”
Clara remembered.
“He hated the apartment.”
“Yes.”
“He said it was beneath you.”
Ethan nodded.
“But he noticed something.”
“What?”
“The kitchen floor.”
Clara followed him.
He knelt beside the cabinets.
Then stopped.
“Wait.”
“What?”
He looked at the tiles.
One was slightly darker.
He pressed it.
Nothing happened.
He pressed another.
A click.
A section of the floor shifted.
Clara stared.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Ethan lifted the tile.
Beneath it was a metal box.
He pulled it out.
There was a lock.
He looked at the key Gabriel had given him.
Clara whispered:
“Room seven.”
Ethan inserted the key.
It turned.
The box opened.
Inside were three things.
A cassette.
A small envelope.
And a hospital bracelet.
Clara picked up the bracelet.
Her heart stopped.
Baby Nathaniel Vale.
Ethan stared at it.
Then he saw the envelope.
His name was written across it.
Not Ethan.
Nathaniel.
His fingers trembled.
He opened it.
Inside was a letter.
The handwriting belonged to Margaret.
My son,
If this letter has reached you, then I am no longer there to protect you.
Ethan sat on the floor.
Clara sat beside him.
He continued reading.
There are things about your birth that you must understand.
Richard believes you belong to him because he paid for the hospital, your upbringing, and everything that came after.
But a child cannot be purchased.
Ethan’s jaw tightened.
Clara placed a hand over his.
He continued.
Your father is Gabriel.
His eyes closed.
A tear slipped down his cheek.
Richard knows this.
Another tear.
That is why he hates him.
Clara whispered:
“Keep reading.”
Ethan did.
But there is something even more important.
His eyes moved lower.
Then stopped.
He read the sentence twice.
“What’s wrong?”
He handed her the letter.
Clara read.
Her blood ran cold.
Gabriel did not kill anyone.
Richard did.
But Richard did not act alone.
Below it was a name.
Victoria.
Clara looked at Ethan.
He stared at the floor.
“No.”
The letter continued.
She was there the night your father was killed.
Clara’s eyes widened.
“Your father?”
Ethan looked at her.
“Gabriel’s father?”
“No.”
She pointed to the letter.
“Your mother says your father was killed.”
Ethan’s face went pale.
“Unless…”
Clara stopped.
“Unless Gabriel wasn’t the father she meant.”
Ethan looked at the letter again.
A terrible possibility formed.
Maybe Margaret had been speaking about another man.
Another secret.
Another identity.
He reached for the cassette.
“Let’s hear it.”
They found an old player in the apartment.
Ethan inserted the cassette.
Static.
Then Margaret’s voice.
“Nathaniel, if you’re hearing this, you are old enough to know why Richard could never let you discover the truth.”
A pause.
“The man who fathered you was not the only person Richard feared.”
Clara frowned.
The recording continued.
“There was another child.”
Ethan looked at Clara.
Another child?
“A child Richard believed had died.”
The recording crackled.
Then Margaret whispered:
“Your brother survived.”
Ethan stopped the tape.
Silence.
Clara stared at him.
“Your brother?”
“I don’t have a brother.”
“You may have.”
“No.”
“Ethan—”
“No.”
He stood abruptly.
“My father told me I was an only child.”
“Your father lied about almost everything.”
Ethan froze.
That was the cruelest part.
Clara walked toward him.
“If your brother survived…”
“He would have to be…”
“Older or younger?”
“Older.”
He stared at the cassette.
Margaret had died the day he was born.
If there was another child, then that child had existed before him.
Clara’s phone suddenly buzzed.
She looked down.
Unknown number.
A message.
Stop searching for Room Seven.
Her blood ran cold.
Another message arrived.
Your father isn’t the man you think he is.
Then a photograph.
Clara opened it.
It showed Gabriel.
Alive.
Sitting in a hospital bed.
Her heart jumped.
“He survived.”
Ethan grabbed the phone.
A final message appeared.
But if you want him to stay alive, come to Bellmont alone.
Ethan stared at the screen.
Clara read the message over his shoulder.
“No.”
He looked at her.
“They want me.”
“They want you alone.”
“I have to go.”
“You’re not going alone.”
“They specifically said—”
“I don’t care what they said.”
He shook his head.
“You don’t understand.”
“I understand perfectly.”
She stepped closer.
“Seven years ago, you let other people decide what happened to us.”
Ethan said nothing.
“I won’t let them do it again.”
He looked at her.
“You’re willing to walk into a trap?”
Clara held his gaze.
“No.”
She picked up the hospital bracelet.
“I’m willing to walk into the truth.”
Bellmont Estate looked different at night.
The old property sat beneath a moonless sky.
The construction site was silent.
Cranes stood like skeletons against the horizon.
Ethan parked far from the main entrance.
Clara looked at him.
“We shouldn’t be here.”
“I know.”
“You’re still going.”
“Yes.”
She sighed.
“Then let’s go.”
They entered through the unfinished western wing.
The building was cold.
Empty.
Their footsteps echoed.
“Room seven,” Clara whispered.
Ethan checked the old floor plan.
“The chapel should be underneath the eastern wing.”
They moved through the dark corridors.
Then Clara stopped.
“Ethan.”
He turned.
She pointed.
A door.
Old.
Wooden.
Almost hidden behind construction material.
Above it was a faded number.
7.
Ethan approached.
He tried the handle.
Locked.
He took out Gabriel’s key.
It fit.
The lock clicked.
The door opened.
Inside was a small underground chamber.
At the center stood a table.
On it were dozens of files.
Photographs.
Birth certificates.
Newspaper clippings.
And one large framed photograph.
Ethan walked toward it.
His face changed.
Clara came beside him.
The photograph showed four people.
Margaret.
Gabriel.
Richard.
And a young boy.
A boy who looked remarkably like Ethan.
But the boy was perhaps six years old.
Ethan stared.
“That isn’t me.”
Clara looked closer.
“No.”
There was a name beneath the photograph.
Alexander Shaw.
Ethan’s breathing stopped.
Then he noticed the handwritten sentence beneath it.
First son.
His eyes widened.
Clara whispered:
“You have a brother.”
Before Ethan could answer, the chamber door slammed shut behind them.
The lights came on.
A voice came through the speakers.
“You finally found Room Seven.”
Ethan looked around.
“Who are you?”
The voice laughed.
Then the screen mounted on the wall flickered to life.
A live video appeared.
Gabriel sat in a hospital bed.
Beside him stood a man.
A man Clara had never seen before.
Ethan stared at the screen.
The stranger smiled.
“Hello, little brother.”
Ethan went completely still.
The man leaned closer to the camera.
“My name is Alexander.”
He smiled.
“And unlike you…”
His eyes hardened.
“…I remember everything.”
END OF CHAPTER 9