Chapter 4 - The Room Behind the Wall

Vivian disappeared up the stairs.

Alejandro immediately examined the steel door.

Industrial lock.

Reinforced hinges.

No visible emergency release.

“This wasn’t here before.”

Elena held Sofia tightly.

“No.”

“She installed everything after she brought me back.”

“Brought you back?”

Alejandro turned.

Elena nodded.

“I wasn’t here the whole three years.”

For the first time, she began telling him what had happened.

On the afternoon she disappeared, Elena had received a call from someone claiming Alejandro had been injured.

A driver was supposedly waiting outside her charity office.

She entered the vehicle.

She remembered smelling something sweet.

Then darkness.

When she woke, she was inside a private medical facility.

Vivian visited the next morning.

She showed Elena photographs.

Alejandro with another woman.

Alejandro signing documents.

A fake police report claiming Alejandro had accused Elena of stealing from Castillo Holdings.

Then came forged letters.

Messages.

Video clips manipulated to make it appear Alejandro wanted her declared mentally unstable.

“They convinced me you were trying to take the children before they were born.”

Alejandro shook his head.

“I didn’t even know about them.”

“I know that now.”

“What happened after they were born?”

Elena looked at Mateo.

“They moved us constantly.”

Private houses.

Clinics.

Once, a yacht.

Then eighteen months earlier, they brought Elena and the children back to Castillo Manor.

Alejandro realized the timing.

That was exactly when Vivian had persuaded him to move temporarily into his downtown penthouse during renovations.

“They kept you here while I lived twelve miles away.”

Elena nodded.

Alejandro clenched his fists.

A soft tapping came from the wall.

Mateo looked toward it.

“There.”

Alejandro pressed his ear against the concrete.

Someone was tapping in a repeating pattern.

Three taps.

Pause.

Two taps.

Pause.

Three taps.

Elena stood.

“That’s Thomas.”

“Who?”

“The old groundskeeper.”

Alejandro remembered him.

Thomas Reed had worked for the Castillo family for nearly thirty years.

Vivian told Alejandro Thomas had retired suddenly.

Elena approached a ventilation grate.

“Thomas?”

A whisper came through.

“Mrs. Castillo?”

Alejandro knelt.

“Thomas, it’s Alejandro.”

Silence.

Then Thomas began crying.

“Sir.”

“Where are you?”

“Behind the utility wall.”

Alejandro searched until he found a removable panel.

Behind it was a narrow maintenance tunnel.

Minutes later, he pulled Thomas through.

The old man looked exhausted but alive.

“You knew Elena was here?”

Thomas nodded.

“I tried to tell you.”

“What happened?”

Thomas removed something from inside his shoe.

A tiny memory card.

“I recorded them.”

Alejandro stared.

“Who?”

Thomas swallowed.

“Vivian.”

“And your brother.”

Alejandro’s blood turned cold.

“My brother is dead.”

Thomas looked him directly in the eyes.

May you like

The housekeeper was supposed to be invisible. Instead, Sophia Hale becam...

Victoria: You will never get a single cent of this family inheritance! M...

The billionaire father was told his son had died. Then the maid smashed...

“No, sir.”

“He’s upstairs.”