Chapter 4 - THE NAME SHE HAD BURIED
Clara stopped breathing.
Elizabeth.
She hadn't heard that name spoken aloud in nearly twenty years.
Adrian moved toward the door, but Dominic caught his arm.
“Wait.”
The voice came again from the hallway.
“Elizabeth, we know you're in there.”
Clara backed away from the table.
“Don't open the door.”
Dominic watched her face.
“Who are they?”
“I don't know.”
“You reacted like you knew exactly who they were.”
“Because that name belonged to someone I used to be.”
Adrian looked between them.
“Clara, what aren't you telling us?”
She pressed a hand to her mouth. For years, she had convinced herself that the past was buried beneath a different surname, a different city, and a life spent keeping her head down.
Now someone had found her.
And they had come carrying a message about a girl who had supposedly never existed.
Dominic positioned himself beside the door.
“Elizabeth,” he called. “If you want to speak, come inside alone.”
Silence.
Then the handle turned.
A woman entered.
She was in her early sixties, dressed in a charcoal coat, with silver hair pulled tightly behind her head. She carried no visible weapon.
But Dominic had spent his life around dangerous people. He recognized the stillness of someone who didn't need to display one.
“My name is Eleanor Price,” she said. “I worked for your mother.”
Dominic's expression hardened.
“Our mother died when we were children.”
“Yes.”
“And you expect me to believe you knew her?”
Eleanor placed a photograph on the table.
It showed Dominic's mother standing in a garden, holding a baby wrapped in a yellow blanket. A younger Eleanor stood beside her.
On the back was a date.
April 18, twenty-nine years earlier.
Clara stared at the baby.
She had seen the photograph before, years ago, in a box her foster mother kept hidden beneath a bed.
“Where did you get that?” she whispered.
“Your mother gave it to me.”
“My mother died when I was six.”
“Your biological mother did.”
Clara felt the room tilt.
Dominic steadied her before she fell.
Eleanor continued.
“Your name was Elizabeth Moretti. Your mother discovered that your father had arranged a private financial network that would eventually be used to eliminate anyone who threatened his control. She feared what would happen to her children if she challenged him.”
Adrian's voice was low.
“Our father knew about her?”
“He knew she had discovered the accounts. What he didn't know was that she had a daughter.”
Dominic stared at Eleanor.
“You're telling me our father hid our sister?”
“No. Your mother did. She believed the only way to protect Elizabeth was to erase her identity.”
Clara shook her head.
“Why would she leave me with strangers?”
“Because the people your father trusted were the people she feared most. She arranged for a nurse to take you away and gave her instructions never to reveal your birth name.”
“Then why did Arthur know?”
Eleanor's eyes softened.
“Arthur found the records while auditing the old estate accounts. He traced a series of payments to the family who raised you. He realized you were connected to the original investigation.”
Clara sank into a chair.
Every memory of her childhood seemed suddenly unstable. The woman who had raised her had loved her, but she had never explained why Clara's earliest records began at age six or why she had no photographs from before that year.
“Was Arthur helping me find my family?” she asked.
“He was helping you understand why your mother disappeared from the official records.”
Dominic's voice turned cold.
“Where is the person who called her Elizabeth?”
Eleanor looked toward the hallway.
“Someone who believes the old accounts should never be exposed.”
“Who?”
Before she could answer, the lights went out.
A gunshot cracked through the darkness.
Clara screamed.
Dominic pulled her to the floor and covered her with his body. Another shot struck the office window, scattering glass across the room.
Adrian returned fire from behind the table.
“Back exit!” he shouted.
Dominic dragged Clara toward a narrow service corridor. Eleanor followed, clutching the photograph.
They emerged into a loading bay where a delivery van sat with its engine running.
Adrian reached the van last, blood soaking the sleeve of his coat.
“Are you hit?” Dominic demanded.
“Just a graze.”
They drove through the city until the gunfire faded into distant traffic.
Only then did Dominic turn toward Clara.
“Your entire life has been built around a secret.”
Clara looked out the window.
“So has yours.”
He had no answer.
At a discreet medical clinic, a doctor treated Adrian's wound while Eleanor spread the old documents across a private examination room.
One paper bore their father's signature.
Another listed payments to Northbridge Holdings dating back nearly thirty years.
The last document was a birth record.
Elizabeth Anne Moretti.
Clara stared at the name.
Then she noticed something written in the margin.
A second birth entry.
A twin.
The child's name had been blacked out, but the hospital number remained visible.
Clara looked at Eleanor.
“You said my mother hid me.”
Eleanor nodded.
“Then why is there another baby?”
Eleanor's face went pale.
For the first time, the woman who claimed to know everything looked terrified.
“Because your mother didn't give birth to one daughter.”
She turned the document over.
On the back was a handwritten note in their mother's familiar script.
IF ELIZABETH SURVIVES, FIND HER SISTER BEFORE FATHER DOES.
Clara felt Dominic's hand close around hers.
“How many sisters do I have?” she whispered.
Eleanor looked directly at her.
May you like
“Two.”
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