Chapter 13 - THE LAST CHILD IN THE BASEMENT
Police surrounded the Sterling mansion while Isabella's broadcast continued.
The crying behind the wall belonged to Lily Pike, Daniel's six-year-old daughter.
Daniel had kept her existence hidden. Isabella took the child after his arrest to force his silence.
“She used everyone,” Emma said.
William wanted to enter with police, but Ortiz refused. “The mansion may be wired.”
Emma knew the staff corridors better than any officer. She showed the tactical team an old laundry passage leading beneath the ballroom.
They entered through the boiler room.
Smoke rolled across the ceiling. Sprinklers had been disabled. Isabella's voice echoed from speakers throughout the house.
“William, you built a palace and never learned what happened inside it.”
That accusation was true enough to wound him.
They reached the hidden room.
Lily was tied to the cot, coughing.
Emma crawled inside while officers searched for explosives. She cut the child free and covered her with a wet blanket.
A timer appeared on the wall.
Three minutes.
“Bomb!” an officer shouted.
The team began evacuating.
William carried Lily toward the tunnel.
Emma heard a second cry.
Not from the room.
From behind another wall.
She struck the concrete and heard a hollow sound.
“There is someone else.”
Ortiz ordered her out.
Emma refused.
They broke through a thin panel and found a narrow compartment filled with computer servers. June Bell's missing medical files were stored there.
And on the floor lay Martin Shaw, bound and barely conscious.
He had vanished from police protection hours earlier.
Emma and Ortiz dragged him into the tunnel as the timer reached forty seconds.
They emerged into the garden.
The basement exploded.
Fire burst through the ballroom windows. The chandeliers crashed one after another.
William shielded Lily. Emma hit the lawn and covered her head.
When she looked back, the mansion that had hidden so many lies was burning from the inside out.
Isabella appeared on the roof terrace.
She held the original property ledger against her chest.
A helicopter hovered beyond the trees.
A rope ladder dropped.
She climbed onto the railing.
William shouted, “Isabella!”
She looked down at him.
“Grace begged you to see her,” she called. “You were always looking at your empire.”
Then she grabbed the ladder.
The helicopter pulled her into the smoke.
Ortiz stared upward.
“That aircraft belongs to Sterling Global.”
William looked at Martin, now conscious on the lawn.
May you like
Martin whispered, “I didn't authorize it.”
The helicopter pilot was William's younger brother, Richard Sterling.
