جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 14

I stared at Adrian. Maybe she was making sure he never came back. His face had gone completely still. Don’t say her name. Why? Because you don’t know what she’s capable of. I laughed once, without humor. Apparently neither do you.The chapel suddenly felt colder. Adrian took the phone from my hand and studied the photograph again. Victoria wasn’t looking at Noah. She was looking directly at the camera. As if she knew we were watching. Then another message appeared.Come inside. My stomach tightened. Adrian looked toward the side door. That’s not an invitation. No. It’s a trap. I looked at the photograph. Noah was sitting beneath a window. Behind him was a familiar painting. I knew that painting. I had seen it every Christmas at Blackwood House. My grandfather’s study. He’s not at the chapel. Adrian looked at me.Noah is at the estate. My heart jumped. Then why bring us here? To keep us away from him. Or to make us think he was somewhere else.Adrian was already moving. We need to go.

The photograph wouldn’t stop trembling in my hand. I never died, Elena. I was waiting for you. I read the words again. Then again. As if the letters might rearrange themselves into something less impossible. They didn’t. My mother was alive.Somewhere, waiting for me. Adrian stood beside me, watching my face. Elena. I looked up. I don’t know what to believe anymore. His expression softened. Then believe what you can prove. I almost laughed. Nothing about my life could be proved anymore. Five years ago, I had believed my husband wanted me dead. My father had died. My mother had supposedly died twelve years earlier. Marcus was supposed to be dead. Yet he had been alive. The man who had stolen my son’s childhood was alive.And now my mother was alive too. I looked at the blue key. What does this open? Adrian crouched beside the altar. There’s something engraved on it.I handed it to him. He turned it beneath the light. A tiny symbol was carved into the metal. His expression changed.