Chapter 5 – THE WALL OF PHOTOGRAPHS

My breath caught in my throat.

I stepped closer to the damp basement wall, staring at the photographs. There were pictures of me walking my younger sister to school, pictures of me buying groceries, pictures of me sitting with Rosa in the mansion’s kitchen.

“Why does he have pictures of my housekeeper?” Adrian demanded, pulling Lily and Leo behind him.

I reached out and pulled down a document tacked beneath a photo of my face. It was a birth certificate. My sister’s birth certificate. But the father’s name wasn’t the man who had raised us. It was a name I recognized from the bakery’s old deeds.

“Vance,” I whispered. “Arthur Vance is my sister’s biological father.”

Adrian stared at me. “You didn’t know?”

“No! My mother never told us who he was before she died!”

Rosa carefully descended the last step of the stairs, leaning on her cane. She looked at the wall, a deep sorrow in her eyes. “He… blamed… us.”

“Blamed us for what?” Adrian asked.

“For… taking… the money,” Rosa managed to say. “Your father… gave Arthur’s share… to… her mother.”

The pieces snapped together. Arthur Vance hadn’t just come back to steal Elias’s partnership agreement. He had orchestrated this entire scheme to bankrupt the DeLuca family as revenge for an ancient betrayal, and he had used my presence in the house to monitor them.

Suddenly, a heavy metal slam echoed from above.

The hatch door had been shut.

Adrian rushed up the wooden stairs and shoved against the trapdoor. It didn’t budge. We were locked in.

And then, the unmistakable smell of gasoline began pouring through the floorboards.

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