Chapter 18 - THREE HUNDRED MILLION
Emma did not scream.
August smiled approvingly.
“That’s why Sofia chose you.”
Emma slowly closed the door behind her.
“Noah isn’t here.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you?”
“To give you something.”
He placed a bank document on the table.
Emma did not touch it.
“What is it?”
“Your inheritance.”
“I don’t have one.”
“You do now.”
He slid the document closer.
Three hundred million dollars.
An offshore custodial account.
Beneficiary:
Emma Katherine Carter.
Her knees almost weakened.
“This is fake.”
“No.”
“Why would Sofia give me money?”
“She didn’t give it to you.”
August smiled.
“She hid it behind you.”
Emma understood.
Her identity was the lock.
Not the owner.
“Where is the real access key?”
August leaned back.
“That’s what you’re going to tell me.”
“I don’t know.”
“I believe you.”
That answer frightened her.
“Then why are you here?”
“Because Damian does.”
Emma stared.
“No, he doesn’t.”
“He found Sofia’s archive.”
August watched her carefully.
“He knows more than he tells you.”
Emma did not react.
She had learned from Damian.
Stillness could be armor.
August continued.
“You trust him.”
“I trust what he has done for Noah.”
“You love him?”
Emma’s expression hardened.
“That is none of your business.”
August smiled.
“Interesting.”
“Leave.”
“Not yet.”
He placed a small device on the table.
A live feed appeared.
Noah’s nursery.
Damian beside the crib.
Emma’s blood turned cold.
“How are you watching that?”
August smiled.
“I built the house.”
Emma remembered Mrs. Hargrove.
Don’t trust the people who were here before Victoria.
The danger had never been one camera.
The entire security network belonged to August.
Emma stood.
“You can see Noah.”
“Yes.”
“You could reach him.”
“Probably.”
Emma’s face went cold.
August smiled wider.
“There she is.”
“Who?”
“The woman Sofia was counting on.”
Emma stepped closer.
“What do you want?”
“Call Damian.”
“No.”
“Tell him to bring you the access phrase.”
“I told you he doesn’t have it.”
August stood.
“Then perhaps we test how quickly he can find it.”
Emma’s phone rang.
Damian.
August nodded.
“Answer.”
Emma did.
“Damian?”
“Where are you?”
“Home.”
A pause.
He heard something in her voice.
“Are you alone?”
August lifted one finger.
Emma looked directly at him.
“No.”
Damian went silent.
“Who?”
Emma stared at August.
Then she said—
“Your father.”
The lights went out.
Damian shouted her name through the phone.
Emma moved.
She slammed the table into August’s knees.
Ran for the hallway.
A hand caught her coat.
She twisted free.
The bank document fell.
August cursed.
Emma reached the stairs.
Then stopped.
Not from fear.
From a memory.
Her mother’s old apartment.
The lullaby she used to hum.
The same melody Sofia wrote.
Emma had heard it all her childhood.
Impossible.
Unless Katherine Carter knew Sofia’s secret long before Emma did.
August reached the hallway.
Emma stared at him.
“I know the password.”
He stopped.
So did she.
A lie.
But he didn’t know that.
“What is it?”
Emma breathed hard.
“Let me walk out.”
August laughed.
“No.”
“Then you’ll never get it.”
“You think I won’t hurt you?”
“I think you’ve had three years to break Sofia and failed.”
That struck him.
Emma stepped closer.
“So you need willing access.”
August said nothing.
“Which means hurting me doesn’t help you.”
He smiled.
“You are smarter than Damian.”
“No.”
Emma’s voice sharpened.
“I just had better teachers.”
Sirens sounded below.
August looked toward the window.
Damian had traced the call.
August moved toward the fire escape.
Emma grabbed his coat.
He struck her away.
Not hard enough to knock her unconscious.
Enough to escape.
By the time Damian reached the apartment, August was gone.
He found Emma sitting against the wall.
He crouched.
“Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine.”
“Emma.”
“I’m fine.”
Her hands were trembling.
He saw them.
She saw him see them.
Neither pretended.
Then Emma handed him the bank paper.
“Three hundred million.”
Damian read it.
“She used my identity.”
“Yes.”
“I remembered something.”
“What?”
“The lullaby.”
Damian looked up.
“My mother sang it.”
Silence.
“Sofia’s lullaby?”
Emma nodded.
“My mother knew it years before Noah was born.”
Damian stared.
Emma continued.
“She changed one line.”
“What line?”
Emma closed her eyes.
She could hear Katherine’s voice.
Where the black bird sleeps beneath the winter moon.
Then the second verse.
A verse Damian had never heard.
Three bells below where the river turns,
The quiet name is the one that burns.
Damian’s face changed.
“I know where that is.”
“Where?”
“Old Saint Gabriel’s.”
A church near the river.
Three bells.
Below street level.
A family crypt.
Emma stared.
“What’s there?”
Damian looked at the bank document.
“The real key.”
But when they reached Saint Gabriel’s crypt, someone had already opened Sofia’s hidden compartment.
And on the stone floor lay Victoria Sinclair.
May you like
Unconscious.
Beside an empty metal box.
