PART 2.
“Get away from him, Lila.
Now.”
My four-year-old daughter didn’t move.
She sat on the bed of the most feared man in Baltimore, one tiny hand pressed against Damian Volkov’s chest.
His face was pale against the pillows, his breathing shallow.
Inches from his hand sat the brass bell that could summon armed guards in seconds.
He could have rung it.
He didn’t.
“What else did she notice?”
Damian asked.
The question was barely louder than a breath, but it changed the room.
I looked at Lila.
She was still staring at Damian’s face with that strange, solemn concentration she sometimes had when she was trying to understand a world that arrived to her in fragments.
“Nothing,” I said quickly.
Lila turned toward me.
That was when I knew I had answered too fast.
Children might not understand danger, but they understood when adults lied.
Damian understood too.
His eyes shifted from me to my daughter.
“Lila,” he said carefully, making sure she could see his mouth.
“What did you notice?”
I stepped closer.
“Mr.
Volkov, she’s four.”
“I know how old she is.”
His voice remained weak, but something harder had entered it.
The Damian everyone feared had returned.
Not completely.
But enough.
Lila slid her hand away from his chest.
Then she pointed toward the half-empty glass of water on the bedside table.
“That.”
My stomach tightened.
Damian’s eyes moved to the glass.
“What about it?”
Lila frowned, searching for words.
“It shakes.”
I blinked.
“The water?”
She nodded.
“When the floor doesn’t.”
Damian’s face changed.
Not dramatically.
With him, nothing ever did.
But I saw the instant every remaining trace of feverish exhaustion disappeared behind calculation.
He looked toward the bedroom door.
“Close it.”
I hesitated.
“Now, Mara.”
I closed it.
The latch sounded painfully loud.
Lila picked up her stuffed rabbit from beside her knee and hugged it against her chest.
Damian watched the water.
I did too.
At first I saw nothing.
Then, after several seconds, a faint ripple crossed its surface.
Tiny.
Almost invisible.
Another followed.
Damian’s eyes narrowed.
“Get her off the bed.”
This time I obeyed.
I lifted Lila into my arms.
She protested, not with words but with a small annoyed sound, then tucked her face against my shoulder.
Damian reached beneath his pillow.
I froze.
He withdrew a black pistol.
My entire body went cold.
“Mr.
Volkov—”
“Stay where you are.”
He swung his legs over the side of the bed.
The effort cost him.
His face went gray.
One hand clenched the mattress.
“You can barely stand.”
“I don’t need to stand long.”
He pressed a button beneath the bedside table.
Nothing happened.
Damian stared at it.
Then pressed it again.
Still nothing.
The brass bell.
The electronic call button.
Both useless.
His gaze lifted toward me.
“We’re locked in.”
My throat went dry.
“That door wasn’t locked.”
“It is now.”
I tried the handle.
It didn’t move.
Lila raised her head from my shoulder.
She pointed toward the wall behind Damian’s bed.
“There.”
Damian looked at her.
“What?”
She pointed again.
“Knocking.”
I heard nothing.
Of course she did not mean sound.
Lila slipped from my arms before I could stop her and pressed her fingertips against the wallpaper.
Her face became serious.
Tap.
Pause.
Tap-tap.
Pause.
I finally felt it when I placed my palm on the wall.
A faint vibration.
Someone was on the other side.
Damian lifted the pistol.
“There is no room on the other side.”
I stared at him.
“What do you mean?”
“That wall backs onto the old chimney shaft.”
Another vibration passed through it.
Then a dull metallic scrape.
Damian’s expression hardened.
“Move away.”
I grabbed Lila and backed toward the windows.
The wallpaper bulged.
Once.
Twice.
Then a narrow vertical seam appeared where I had never noticed one before.
Damian aimed.
A section of the wall moved inward.
And a man stepped through.
He wore Grayhaven security black.
For half a second, relief hit me.
Then Damian fired.
The shot thundered through the bedroom.
Lila screamed—not because she heard all of it, but because she felt it.
The guard collapsed before he could raise his weapon.
I pressed Lila’s face into my neck.
“Oh God.”
Damian limped forward.
He kicked the fallen man’s gun away.
Then he crouched with obvious pain and pulled back the guard’s sleeve.
A small black serpent was tattooed around the wrist.
Damian’s jaw tightened.
“Who is he?”
I whispered.
“One of mine.”
“That doesn’t explain why he came through a wall.”
“No.”
Damian looked toward the hidden opening.
“It explains something worse.”
Footsteps sounded somewhere beyond it.
More than one set.
Damian turned toward me.
“How much do you weigh?”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“A hundred and twenty pounds.
Why?”
He pointed toward a carved wardrobe near the far side of the room.
“Move it.”
I almost laughed from panic.
“That thing is solid oak.”
“Then today you learn something about yourself.”
He crossed to it, braced one shoulder against the side, and pushed.
His knees nearly buckled.
I set Lila down.
“Stay with Bunny.”
Then I joined him.
The wardrobe barely moved.
Another metallic scrape came from inside the hidden passage.
“Again,” Damian said.
We pushed.
The wood groaned against the floor.
A narrow doorway appeared behind it.
I stared.
“How many secret doors does this house have?”
“Too many.”
He pulled it open.
A dark staircase descended.
“Take Lila.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll follow.”
“You can’t even walk.”
“I said I’ll follow.”
“No.”
His eyes snapped to mine.
People probably spent their entire lives obeying that look.
I was too frightened to.
“You’ll collapse.”
“And if I stay, you’ll both die.”
“And if you collapse on those stairs, we all die.”
Something flickered in his face.
Surprise, perhaps.
Nobody argued with Damian Volkov.
Apparently nobody except the cleaning woman.
And her four-year-old daughter.
Behind us came the unmistakable click of a weapon being loaded.
Damian made the decision.
“Fine.
Shoulder.”
“What?”
“My arm.
Put it over your shoulder.”
I helped him.
He was heavier than I expected and burning with fever.
Lila clutched my skirt as we stumbled into the hidden stairwell.
Damian pulled the door shut behind us.
Darkness swallowed everything.
Then a strip of low amber lights blinked on automatically along the floor.
The staircase descended steeply beneath Grayhaven House.
“How did they disable your guards?”
I whispered.
“They didn’t.”
I looked at him.
He met my eyes.
“They are my guards.”
That frightened me more than anything else.
We descended.
Above us came a muffled crash.
The wardrobe had been moved.
They had found the door.
Damian’s breathing worsened.
Lila kept glancing back at him.
Halfway down, she stopped.
“Mama.”
“Keep moving, sweetheart.”
She shook her head.
Then she pointed at Damian.
“Wrong.”
Damian leaned against the stone wall.
“What’s wrong?”
Lila touched her own throat.
Then pointed at his.
“Blue.”
I looked.
At first I thought it was a bruise.
Then I saw faint bluish veins spreading above his collar.
Damian saw my expression.
“What?”
“Your neck.”
He touched it.
His fingertips came away clean.
“It’s under the skin,” I said.
He looked toward the stairs below us.
“The poison.”
“But that was weeks ago.”
“No.”
His eyes darkened.
“The poison is now.”
I stared at him.
“You said someone poisoned your wine weeks ago.”
“They did.”
“And you survived.”
“I survived the first dose.”
The words settled like ice inside me.
“The first?”
“A slow toxin.
Designed to weaken me in stages.”
“Who would have access long enough to keep dosing you?”
Damian gave me a look that said I already knew the answer.
Everyone in the house.
Doctors.
Nurses.
Security.
Kitchen staff.
Even cleaners.
Including me.
Before I could speak, he whispered, “My pills.”
“What?”
“The medication beside my bed.”
I remembered the silver case.
Three white tablets every morning.
Two in the evening.
“You think someone replaced them?”
“I think the medicine is the poison.”
Footsteps sounded above us.
Closer.
Damian pushed away from the wall.
“Move.”
We reached the bottom of the staircase and entered an underground corridor lined with old brick.
Lila suddenly pulled free.
“Lila!”
She crouched.
Placed both palms on the floor.
Then looked left.
“People.”
Damian did not question her.
“How many?”
She frowned.
“Lots.”
He looked right.
“Then we go this way.”
“What is this place?”
I asked.
“Grayhaven was built during Prohibition.
Tunnels connected the house to the harbor.”
Of course they did.
Apparently rich criminals had been planning dramatic escapes beneath Baltimore for a hundred years.
We turned right.
Damian grew heavier against me with every step.
Finally we reached an iron door.
He entered a code.
Red light.
He tried again.
Red.
“They changed it.”
I felt sick.
“Can we go back?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
He lifted the gun.
“We wait.”
“For them?”
“For one of them to open the door.”
That plan was insane.
Before I could say so, Lila tugged Damian’s sleeve.
She pointed at a rusted ventilation grate near the floor.
“Cold.”
Damian crouched.
He put his hand near it.
Air moved through.
“Other side?”
Lila nodded.
Damian fired twice into the lock beside the grate.
I flinched.
“Was that necessary?”
“No.”
He kicked the grate free.
“But it was faster.”
The opening was barely large enough for Lila.
Damian looked at her.
“No.”
I stared at him.
“You just opened it.”
“I expected a maintenance crawlspace.
Not that.”
He shone a small flashlight through.
Beyond the grate was darkness and, perhaps ten feet away, another room.
Lila peered inside.
“I go.”
“No,” I said immediately.
She gave me the stubborn look inherited from absolutely no one I wished to acknowledge.
Damian examined the vent.
“Can you reach the other side?”
Lila nodded.
I grabbed his arm.
“She is not crawling into a dark tunnel while armed men chase us.”
“She’s also the only one who fits.”
“I don’t care.”
Damian looked at me.
Then, unexpectedly, he lowered his voice.
“Mara.”
I hated how calm he sounded.
“There is an emergency release on the other side of that door.”
“No.”
“If they catch us, they won’t leave witnesses.”
I looked at Lila.
She was watching our mouths.
Understanding too much.
I knelt.
“Baby, listen to me.”
She nodded.
“You crawl straight ahead.
You do not stop.
You do not turn.
When you get out, look for a red handle beside the big door.”
“Red.”
“Yes.”
“Pull?”
“Yes.”
She kissed my cheek.
Then she looked at Damian.
He extended the flashlight.
Lila took it.
“Brave girl,” he said slowly.
She read his lips.
Then shook her head.
“No.”
Damian blinked.
Lila pointed at me.
“Mommy scared.”
A faint, almost impossible smile touched his mouth.
“Yes,” he said.
“She is.”
Then Lila crawled inside.
Every second felt like a year.
Her shoes disappeared.
Then the light.
I pressed my ear near the grate even though I knew it was useless.
Damian stood behind me, barely breathing.
“You have children?”
I asked suddenly.
“No.”
“Good.”
He looked down.
“Why?”
“Because you’re terrible at reassuring parents.”
A soft sound escaped him.
It took me a second to realize Damian Volkov had laughed.
Then the iron door beside us clicked.
I jumped up.
It opened.
Lila stood on the other side, smiling proudly.
I grabbed her and crushed her against me.
Damian slipped through and shut the door.
We had entered what looked like an old wine cellar.
Dust-covered bottles lined the walls.
A single bulb flickered overhead.
Damian walked to one rack, removed three bottles in a specific sequence, and pulled.
The entire shelf swung open.
I stared at him.
“You really do have too many secret doors.”
“This one isn’t mine.”
My fear returned.
“Whose is it?”
“My father’s.”
We stepped into a room that had not been touched in years.
A desk.
A safe.
Old photographs.
A rotary telephone.
Damian stopped.
For the first time since the bedroom, he looked unsettled.
Not afraid.
Haunted.
“What is this place?”
“My father’s private office.”
“I thought your father died.”
“He did.”
“When?”
“Eighteen years ago.”
Lila wandered toward the desk.
Damian snapped, “Don’t touch—”
Too late.
She picked up a framed photograph.
Her little brow furrowed.
Then she looked at me.
Then at the picture.
Then back at me.
“Mama.”
I crossed the room.
The photograph showed three men and one woman standing outside Grayhaven House nearly twenty years earlier.
Damian was younger, maybe sixteen.
Beside him stood an older man with the same cold eyes.
His father.
The third man was someone I did not recognize.
But the woman—
The room tilted.
No.
Impossible.
Lila tapped the glass.
“Mama.”
Damian took the photograph from her.
His expression turned deadly.
He looked at the woman.
Then at me.
“Who are you?”
“I don’t know her.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“My name is Mara Ellis.”
“No.”
His voice grew quiet.
Dangerously quiet.
“I hired Mara Ellis eleven months ago.”
“Yes.”
“I had her background checked.”
My heart began pounding.
“So?”
“So Mara Ellis was born in Ohio.”
“I was.”
“She had no connection to Baltimore before three years ago.”
“That’s right.”
Damian turned the photograph toward me.
“Then why is your mother standing beside my father?”
I stopped breathing.
“My mother died when I was six.”
“What was her name?”
“Anna.”
Damian went still.
“What?”
“Anna Ellis.”
He sat heavily in his father’s chair.
Not from weakness this time.
From shock.
“That woman was Anna Mercer.”
I stared at him.
“No.”
“My father’s accountant.”
“No.”
“She disappeared the night he died.”
I shook my head.
“My mother was a receptionist.”
“Your mother moved twelve million dollars from Volkov accounts seventy-two hours before my father was murdered.”
“That’s impossible.”
Damian reached for the desk drawer.
Locked.
He shot it.
I jumped.
“Can you stop doing that?”
“No.”
He yanked the drawer open.
Inside were old folders.
He searched quickly, then pulled out a brown envelope.
ANNA MERCER was written across the front.
My hands trembled.
Damian opened it.
Inside was a passport photograph.
My mother.
Younger.
Smiling.
Alive.
I recognized the small scar near her eyebrow.
My knees weakened.
“This can’t be real.”
Damian flipped through the papers.
Bank transfers.
Addresses.
Handwritten notes.
Then he stopped.
“What?”
He did not answer.
“Damian.”
He handed me a page.
It was a birth record.
My name appeared on it.
Mara Anne Mercer.
Not Ellis.
Mercer.
The father’s section was blank.
I stared until the letters blurred.
“I don’t understand.”
Damian did.
I could see it.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Before he answered, Lila pulled at my sleeve.
She was staring toward the ceiling.
“People.”
Damian immediately closed the file.
“How close?”
Lila held up two fingers.
“Two people?”
She shook her head.
“Two floors.”
Damian moved to the old telephone and lifted the receiver.
No dial tone.
He opened the base.
Inside was a small modern transmitter.
His eyes hardened.
“This room is bugged.”
“By whom?”
“We’re about to find out.”
He ripped the transmitter free.
A green light blinked.
Then turned red.
Somewhere beyond the hidden wall, machinery started.
The wine rack began closing.
“Damian!”
He grabbed the file, seized Lila’s hand, and pulled us toward another door.
It opened into a tunnel.
We ran.
Or tried to.
Damian stumbled after twenty feet.
I caught him.
His lips were turning blue.
“Stop.”
“We can’t.”
“You’re dying.”
“Yes.”
The simplicity of it stopped me.
Lila stared at his mouth.
Her face crumpled.
“No.”
Damian looked at her.
Something softened in him.
He knelt despite the pain.
“I need you to listen.”
She shook her head violently.
“No.”
“Lila.”
“No die.”
My throat closed.
Damian glanced at me.
Then back at her.
“I’m not planning to.”
He removed a silver chain from beneath his shirt.
A small key hung from it.
He pressed it into Lila’s hand.
“If your mother tells you to run, you run.”
Lila closed her fingers around the key.
“No.”
“If she tells you to hide, you hide.”
“No.”
“And if a man named Viktor finds you—”
A gunshot cracked through the tunnel.
Brick exploded beside Damian’s head.
He moved faster than I thought possible.
He shoved us behind a stone column and fired back.
A man screamed.
More shots followed.
“Run!”
Damian shouted.
I grabbed Lila.
We sprinted.
The tunnel opened onto an underground garage.
Black vehicles.
Concrete pillars.
Harsh white lights.
And six armed men waiting for us.
I stopped.
Damian emerged behind us.
His gun had one bullet left.
The men raised their weapons.
Then someone began clapping.
Slowly.
A man stepped from behind a black SUV.
Tall.
Gray-haired.
Elegant coat.
He looked to be in his sixties.
Damian’s face became absolutely still.
“Viktor.”
Lila squeezed the key.
The man smiled.
“So you remembered me.”
“You’re supposed to be in Prague.”
“I was.”
Viktor’s gaze moved to me.
Then to Lila.
And something in his expression changed.
Recognition.
My stomach dropped.
“You,” he whispered.
Damian noticed.
“You know her?”
Viktor did not answer.
He stared at me as though he had seen a ghost.
Then he said one word.
“Anna?”
My blood turned cold.
“My name is Mara.”
Viktor stepped closer.
Damian raised his pistol.
“One more step.”
Viktor stopped.
His eyes remained on me.
“You have her face.”
“Who?”
“Your mother.”
“You knew her?”
A sad smile touched his mouth.
“I loved her.”
The garage became silent.
Even Damian looked surprised.
I felt as if the floor had disappeared beneath me.
“Then tell me what happened to her.”
Viktor’s smile faded.
“She made the mistake of trusting a Volkov.”
Damian’s expression hardened.
“My father?”
“No.”
Viktor looked directly at him.
“You.”
Damian went motionless.
“That’s impossible.”
“You were sixteen.”
“I barely knew Anna.”
“You knew enough.”
Viktor reached inside his coat.
Damian aimed.
“Don’t.”
Slowly, Viktor removed a photograph.
He placed it on the hood of the SUV.
“Look.”
Damian hesitated.
I snatched it first.
The photograph showed my mother holding a newborn baby.
On the back, in faded ink, were the words:
MARA.
JULY 14.
Beneath them was another line.
If anything happens to me, Damian must never know she is his sister.
My vision blurred.
I read it again.
Then again.
“No.”
Damian took the photo.
All color left his face.
Viktor watched him.
“Your father had many secrets.”
Damian stared at me.
His sister.
The word felt absurd.
Impossible.
Terrifying.
“You’re lying,” Damian said.
“Am I?”
Viktor gestured toward the file under Damian’s arm.
“Why do you think Sergei Volkov kept Anna’s records hidden?”
Damian’s gun lowered slightly.
That was when Viktor’s men moved.
I saw it.
Damian did not.
“Behind you!”
He turned.
Too late.
A guard struck him across the back of the head.
Damian fell.
Lila screamed.
I lunged, but another man caught me.
“Don’t touch her!”
Damian snarled from the floor.
Viktor crouched beside him.
For the first time, his smile became cruel.
“You still think this was about killing you?”
Damian spat blood.
“You poisoned me.”
“Yes.”
“You turned my security.”
“Yes.”
“You locked down my house.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Viktor looked at Lila.
“Because I needed Anna’s bloodline under one roof.”
Every hair on my arms rose.
“What does that mean?”
He stood.
“That poison was never meant to kill Damian.”
Damian’s eyes narrowed.
Viktor continued.
“It was meant to make him weak enough that someone could get close.”
His gaze shifted to Lila.
“Someone he would never suspect.”
I pulled my daughter behind me.
“She’s four years old.”
“Yes.”
“And very observant.”
Damian looked from Viktor to Lila.
Then down at the key still clenched in her hand.
His face changed.
“Lila.”
She looked at him.
“The key I gave you.”
She opened her fist.
Damian stared.
“That isn’t mine.”
I looked.
The silver key was gone.
In Lila’s palm lay a tiny brass key.
Viktor smiled.
“Clever girl.”
My heart stopped.
“Where did you get that?”
Lila pointed toward Damian.
“Room.”
“The bedroom?”
She nodded.
“Where?”
She touched her rabbit.
I grabbed it.
Something rattled inside.
The seam along its back had been cut and badly stitched.
I tore it open.
A small metal box fell onto the concrete.
Damian stared at it.
Viktor’s men stared too.
“What is that?”
I whispered.
Damian answered.
“My father’s vault key.”
Viktor’s expression brightened.
“At last.”
I turned to Lila.
“Sweetheart, who put that in Bunny?”
Her face tightened.
She looked frightened now.
Really frightened.
She pointed toward Viktor.
Then shook her head.
“No.”
“Someone else?”
She nodded.
“Who?”
Lila stared past us.
Toward the entrance of the garage.
A woman stood there.
White nurse’s uniform.
Dark coat.
Hands folded calmly in front of her.
I recognized her immediately.
Everyone at Grayhaven did.
Dr.
Evelyn Shaw.
Damian’s personal physician.
The woman who had treated him since the poisoning.
The woman who controlled every pill he swallowed.
Damian slowly raised his head.
“Evelyn.”
She smiled.
Then looked at me.
Not Damian.
Not Viktor.
Me.
“Mara.”
Something about the way she said my name made my skin crawl.
Viktor’s confidence vanished.
“You weren’t supposed to be here.”
Evelyn ignored him.
She walked toward Lila.
I stepped in front of my daughter.
“Stay away from her.”
Evelyn stopped.
Her eyes filled with something dangerously close to affection.
“Oh, Mara.”
She reached into her coat.
Every gun in the garage lifted.
She removed no weapon.
Only an old photograph.
A woman holding a newborn.
The same woman.
My mother.
Except this image was clearer.
And beside her stood Evelyn.
Young.
Smiling.
My mouth went dry.
“You knew my mother too.”
Evelyn’s eyes never left mine.
“Knew her?”
She smiled.
Then spoke the words that shattered every certainty I had left.
“I am your mother.”
Silence swallowed the garage.
I could not breathe.
“That’s impossible.”
“No, sweetheart.”
My knees weakened.
“You died.”
“Anna Ellis died.”
She pointed toward the file Damian carried.
“Anna Mercer did not.”
Damian pushed himself onto one elbow.
Viktor backed away.
For the first time, the older man looked afraid.
Evelyn looked down at Lila.
“And now that my granddaughter has found the key, we can finally open what Sergei Volkov buried eighteen years ago.”
“What’s in the vault?”
I whispered.
Evelyn’s smile disappeared.
“The reason Damian’s father was murdered.”
She looked at Damian.
“The reason your mother disappeared.”
Then at me.
“And the reason someone in this garage will be dead before sunrise.”
The lights suddenly went out.
Lila screamed.
Gunfire exploded in the darkness.
Someone grabbed my arm.
Another hand tore Lila away from me.
“LILA!”
A car engine roared.
Headlights flared.
For one impossible second, I saw everything.
Damian on the floor reaching for his gun.
Viktor bleeding from the shoulder.
Evelyn standing perfectly still.
And Lila inside the back seat of a black car.
Not crying.
Not fighting.
Staring through the window at me with wide eyes.
Beside her sat someone I had not seen enter the garage.
A man with Damian’s face.
Older.
Scarred.
Alive.
Damian saw him too.
His expression became something I had never seen before.
Pure horror.
“No,” he whispered.
The man in the car smiled at him.
Then the vehicle shot toward the tunnel exit.
I ran after it.
“WHO IS THAT?”
Damian’s answer came behind me.
Broken.
Disbelieving.
“The man who died eighteen years ago.”
The car vanished into darkness.
“My father.”
…If you want to know what happened next, please type “YES” and like for more.
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Source: Stories of Destiny · Thao Thao
