Chapter 7 - NOBODY WAS SUPPOSED TO LEAVE
Ruiz slammed his radio.
“Evacuate! Now!”
A hiss filled the basement.
White vapor spilled through vents near the floor.
Victor pulled his jacket over Lily’s mouth.
“Go!”
Two officers lifted Rebecca.
They ran.
The hallway blurred.
Victor’s lungs burned before they even reached the stairs.
Lily stumbled.
He grabbed her arm.
“Keep moving!”
Behind them, something exploded.
The force threw Victor forward.
Glass shattered.
Fire rolled through the basement corridor.
They reached the first floor as smoke poured up the stairwell.
Ruiz kicked out a side window.
“Through here!”
One by one, they escaped.
Victor collapsed outside, coughing.
Lily crawled toward Rebecca.
“Is she okay?”
A paramedic placed an oxygen mask over Rebecca’s face.
She was conscious.
Barely.
Ruiz looked at the burning building.
“That wasn’t meant to scare us.”
Victor wiped blood from his lip.
“It was meant to kill everyone inside.”
Ruiz nodded.
“Which means whoever sent the address expected us to find Rebecca.”
Victor looked at Lily.
“Then why?”
A voice behind them answered.
“To erase her.”
Everyone turned.
An older woman stood near the road.
Gray coat.
Silver hair.
Hands visible.
She looked to be in her late fifties.
Lily stared at her.
Something about the woman’s face felt familiar.
Not identical.
But familiar enough to hurt.
Ruiz’s hand went to his weapon.
“Don’t move.”
The woman obeyed.
Lily whispered, “Evelyn?”
The woman’s eyes filled with tears.
“Hello, Lily.”
Victor stepped in front of her.
“You hired her.”
“Yes.”
“You put her in my house.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Evelyn looked at him.
“Because I knew Serena was dangerous.”
Victor’s anger rose.
“You could have told me.”
“You wouldn’t have believed me.”
“Try me.”
“I did.”
Victor frowned.
Evelyn reached into her coat very slowly.
Ruiz drew his gun.
“Hands!”
“It’s paper.”
She removed a folded envelope and dropped it to the ground.
Ruiz picked it up.
Inside were letters.
Victor recognized the handwriting immediately.
Claire’s.
His dead wife.
His knees nearly buckled.
“What is this?”
Evelyn’s expression softened.
“Claire knew me.”
Victor stared.
“No.”
“She found me before Ethan was born.”
“No.”
“She was afraid.”
“Of what?”
“Of the Blackwood family.”
Victor laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“I am the Blackwood family.”
Evelyn shook her head.
“No. Your father was.”
Victor’s face changed.
His father, Charles Blackwood, had died six years earlier.
A ruthless businessman.
Controlling.
Secretive.
Victor had spent half his adult life trying not to become him.
Evelyn continued.
“Claire discovered something in the company archives.”
“What?”
“She was afraid to tell you because she didn’t know who around you was loyal to Charles.”
“My father was dead.”
“His people weren’t.”
Victor looked at the letters.
One was dated three weeks before Claire’s death.
His hands shook as he opened it.
Victor,
If anything happens to me, do not let them tell you it was an accident.
Victor stopped reading.
His vision blurred.
Claire had died when her car went through a guardrail on a mountain road.
The official report said brake failure.
A manufacturing defect.
An accident.
He had believed it for three years.
He looked at Evelyn.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing to Claire.”
“Then why did she write this?”
“Because she discovered your father’s private network.”
Ruiz asked, “What network?”
Evelyn looked at the burning clinic.
“A system built to control inheritances.”
Victor’s face hardened.
“Speak English.”
“Your father spent decades protecting Blackwood wealth from what he called ‘unstable heirs.’”
Victor stared.
Evelyn continued.
“He paid doctors. Attorneys. private investigators. Domestic staff.”
“For what?”
“To create evidence.”
Victor’s stomach dropped.
“Evidence of what?”
“Addiction. Abuse. Mental instability. Neglect. Whatever would remove someone from control of a trust.”
Lily whispered, “They framed people.”
“Yes.”
Victor thought of the suitcase under Lily’s bed.
The photographs.
The passport.
The fake evidence.
Evelyn continued.
“Claire found records showing that similar tactics had been used against three women who married into the Blackwood family.”
Victor’s voice turned quiet.
“And Serena?”
“Serena’s family was one of them.”
He froze.
Evelyn nodded.
“Her mother married your uncle Andrew.”
Victor remembered Andrew Blackwood vaguely.
His father’s younger brother.
Dead before Victor finished college.
Andrew’s second wife had been accused of stealing money and abusing prescription drugs.
She disappeared from society after the divorce.
Victor had never known her name.
Evelyn said it.
“Caroline Vale.”
Serena’s mother.
Victor understood slowly.
“This is revenge.”
“Partly.”
“Partly?”
Evelyn looked toward Lily.
“Lauren doesn’t care about revenge anymore.”
Lily’s voice trembled.
“What does my sister want?”
Evelyn’s face collapsed with grief.
“She wants to finish what your father started.”
“My father?”
“No.”
Evelyn looked at Victor.
“His.”
Victor went still.
“My father knew Lauren?”
Evelyn nodded.
“He raised her.”
Lily whispered, “What?”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
“When my twins were born, Charles Blackwood took one of them.”
Lily’s face drained of color.
“Why?”
“Because he needed a child no one would look for.”
Ruiz stared at her.
“A child for what?”
Evelyn looked at Victor.
“For training.”
Victor’s voice became almost inaudible.
“Training to do what?”
Evelyn opened her eyes.
May you like
“To become anyone he needed.”
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