All Chapters of THE LAST LETTER: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

The entire chamber froze. Evelyn Ashcroft lay motionless on the marble floor, blood spreading slowly across the white of her suit."Evelyn!" Emma dropped to her knees beside her. "Stay with me!"Evelyn's eyes fluttered open, her lips moving without sound. Emma pressed both hands hard against the wound."Someone help me!"Liam was there in an instant. "Emma, move." He knelt and checked Evelyn's pulse, his face taut with concentration. "She's alive."Emma let out a shaking breath. "Thank God."Across the chamber, Victor Kane stared up at the balcony where the sniper had vanished, his calm finally cracked. He turned to his guards. "Find him."Several peeled off toward the upper level at once.Ross leveled his weapon at Victor. "Nobody moves.""Believe me, Agent Ross," Victor said coldly, "I want to know who fired that shot more than you do."Thomas crossed the room and carefully lifted the Founder Seal from the floor. His eyes widened as he turned it over. "Emma.""What?" she asked."Thi

The chamber remained frozen in the aftermath. Smoke from the gunshot curled slowly toward the vaulted ceiling, catching the red emergency light like something almost alive. Ross lay motionless on the marble, and for a long moment no one dared to move, as though moving might make what had just happened real.Emma couldn't tear her eyes from the man standing on the balcony above them. He had just killed the person who had betrayed them all — and somehow, that wasn't what frightened her most.What frightened her was that she recognized him.She had seen that face before, faded in old photographs tucked into the back pages of her father's belongings. She had heard that voice once, buried in one of Michael's recordings, a name mentioned only in passing and never explained. She had searched for it in her father's notebook and found nothing but a gap where an answer should have been.That man was supposed to be dead."Adrian," Emma whispered.The stranger reached up and slowly peeled the bla

The voice echoed through the archive, unhurried, almost gentle in its cruelty."I think it's time our daughter knew which one of us is her real mother."Emma stood frozen. Through the glass wall, she stared at Sophia — her mother, or at least the woman she had spent every waking hour since that tunnel believing was her mother.Sophia's face had drained of all color. "No," she whispered, shaking her head. "That's impossible."The voice laughed, soft and unbothered. "Is it?"Emma looked around at the darkened archive. "Who are you?"No answer came. She turned back to the glass. "Mom."Sophia couldn't seem to find words."Mom — tell me she's lying," Emma said, her voice starting to shake.Sophia pressed both palms flat against the glass, as though she could reach through it. "I am your mother.""Then why did she call me her daughter?""I don't know," Sophia said, though something in her face suggested otherwise."You know exactly why," the voice cut in."Please," Sophia said, eyes squeez

The platform plunged through the dark. Emma's scream tore from her throat as Rebecca grabbed the railing with both hands and Thomas pulled Catherine hard against him. Lucas reached out and caught Emma's arm."Hold on!"The descent kept accelerating, wind roaring past them in the black — and then, without warning —BOOM.The platform slammed to a halt, throwing everyone forward in a tangle of limbs and gasped breath. For several long seconds, no one moved.Emma lifted her head first. "Is everyone alright?""I'm fine," Rebecca said, shaky but steady.Thomas checked Catherine over quickly. "She's okay."Lucas rose and peered into the gloom beyond the platform's edge. "We're here."Emma followed his gaze, and her breath caught. A massive underground chamber stretched out before them — nothing like the archive above, all steel walls and humming machinery. Enormous screens lined one entire side of the room, and hundreds of cables snaked overhead like the roots of some buried tree. At the ve

Emma froze. Someone stood directly behind her, a hand resting gently on her shoulder — a hand she knew, attached to a face she knew better than her own.Sophia. Her mother.But her father's warning was still ringing in her mind. Do not follow whoever is wearing your mother's necklace.Slowly, Emma looked down at the silver chain still coiled in her own palm. Then back up at Sophia's throat.There was a necklace there too.Her heart began to pound. "Where did you get that?"Sophia smiled, easy and warm. "What do you mean?""The necklace."Sophia touched her own throat. "This one?""Where's the one you were wearing before?" Emma demanded, her voice rising.For the first time, something flickered behind Sophia's smile — the faintest hesitation. "I don't understand what you're asking."Emma stepped back, holding up the necklace still clenched in her fist. "My mother had this. You were wearing it the moment before you vanished."Sophia's eyes dropped to it, and for a heartbeat something un