Chapter 10 - The Sister Who Vanished
Her name was Sophie Vale.
My half sister.
Two years younger than me.
My father had hidden her existence for fifteen years.
I did not scream.
I did not cry.
I stared at him across the conference table and asked one question.
“Who is her mother?”
Victor’s answer broke what remained of my trust.
“Evelyn.”
I stood so quickly my chair hit the floor.
Mara stared at Dad.
“Your sister had a child?”
Victor shook his head.
“No.”
I stopped.
“What?”
“Sophie wasn’t Evelyn’s biological daughter.”
He looked at me.
“She was Augustus Cross’s granddaughter.”
Claire Cross went pale.
“How?”
Victor looked at her.
“Your father.”
Claire whispered, “My father had another daughter?”
“Before Celeste.”
The story unfolded slowly.
Augustus Cross’s eldest daughter, Rebecca, discovered part of the family operation.
She attempted to expose him.
She disappeared.
Her daughter Sophie was smuggled away.
Evelyn raised her secretly.
Then Isabella discovered Sophie’s identity.
Instead of exposing the child, Mom helped hide her.
I stared at my father.
“So Mom and Evelyn were protecting Sophie.”
“Yes.”
“And the Montreal meeting?”
“Probably about moving her again.”
Mara asked, “Where is Sophie now?”
Marcus answered.
“I don’t know.”
“You flew her out.”
“To Istanbul.”
“Then?”
“Evelyn took her.”
Claire sat down.
“My grandfather murdered his own daughter.”
Victor’s voice was quiet.
“I believe so.”
“And my father?”
“He never knew he had a sister.”
Claire stared at nothing.
Every family in the room had just become larger and uglier.
Then Mara’s phone rang.
She listened.
Her expression sharpened.
“We have a facial recognition hit.”
“On Evelyn?”
“No.”
She turned the screen toward us.
A woman entering a bank in Switzerland.
Thirty years old.
Dark hair.
Vale eyes.
Sophie.
Timestamp:
Two days earlier.
Mara zoomed in.
Sophie was carrying a hard black case.
Victor whispered, “Orion.”
I looked at him.
“You think she has the ledger?”
“Part of it.”
Claire shook her head.
“Why Switzerland?”
Mara answered.
“Because Crosswell maintains three private banking relationships there.”
The seventy-two-hour deadline suddenly made sense.
This was not about killing my mother.
It was about moving something.
Or unlocking something.
Mara began tracing the bank.
Claire called Damian.
No answer.
Again.
No answer.
Then my phone rang.
Damian.
I answered.
“Where are you?”
His breathing was heavy.
“Elena.”
“What happened?”
“I found my grandfather’s recording.”
“Send it.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because my mother found me first.”
A woman’s voice sounded in the background.
Celeste Cross.
Calm.
Elegant.
“Hello, Elena.”
My stomach tightened.
“Celeste.”
“I’m afraid Damian has made a series of disappointing decisions.”
Damian shouted something.
A sound followed.
Then silence.
“Where is he?”
“Safe.”
“You hurt him?”
“He is my son.”
“That was not an answer.”
Celeste laughed softly.
“You really are Isabella’s daughter.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“Is my mother alive?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
The room stopped.
Even my father stopped breathing.
“Where?”
“Close.”
“How close?”
Celeste’s voice became almost gentle.
“Closer than Victor ever imagined.”
Then she added:
“Tell your father to look beneath the place where Isabella died.”
The call ended.
Victor stared at me.
Halcyon Estate.
The terrace.
The place where everyone believed my mother had fallen.
We returned before midnight.
Workers removed the marble beneath the terrace.
Six feet down, they found a steel hatch.
My father had owned the house.
Designed the security.
Walked across that terrace a thousand times.
And never knew it was there.
Marcus forced the hatch open.
Cold air rose from below.
A narrow staircase descended into darkness.
At the bottom was a room.
A bed.
Medical equipment.
Old restraints.
Photographs.
And one sentence scratched repeatedly into the concrete wall.
ELENA IS ALIVE.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Hundreds of times.
May you like
My mother had been held beneath Halcyon Estate.
Directly underneath the place where the world believed she died.
