CHAPTER TWO: THE MAN WHO WAS SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD
1672 Words
Sophia stared at the message until the words blurred.
THE LAST TARGET IS YOUR MOTHER.
Her fingers tightened around the phone.
For twenty-one years, she had followed orders.
She had learned not to question.
Not to hesitate.
Not to become attached.
Attachment was weakness.
That was what they had taught her.
And for most of her life, Sophia had believed them.
Until Eleanor.
Her mother had been the one exception.
The one person who had never been part of the world Sophia belonged to.
The one person she had protected from the truth.
Sophia looked out through the tinted window as the city passed in streaks of light.
"Stop the car."
The driver didn't respond.
"Stop the car."
This time, he glanced at her through the rear-view mirror.
"We have instructions."
"I don't care."
The driver remained silent.
Sophia reached beneath her jacket.
The driver immediately slowed.
"Pull over."
The car came to a stop beside an empty road.
Sophia opened the door.
Before stepping out, she looked toward the front.
"Tell them I'm handling it."
The driver turned slightly.
"They won't like that."
Sophia gave him a cold smile.
"They don't have to."
She stepped out and slammed the door.
The car disappeared moments later.
Sophia stood alone beneath the streetlights.
She took out her phone again.
The message was still there.
She typed one sentence.
Who gave the order?
The response came almost immediately.
You know better than to ask.
Sophia stared at it.
Then she typed:
I'm asking anyway.
There was a pause.
Another message appeared.
You have forty-eight hours.
Sophia's expression hardened.
And if I refuse?
The reply came seconds later.
Then Eleanor dies first.
Sophia locked the phone.
Her mother had always believed Sophia was simply a difficult child.
Quiet.
Independent.
Sometimes distant.
Eleanor had never understood why her daughter hated crowded places.
Why Sophia always sat with her back to a wall.
Why she never allowed anyone to stand behind her.
Why she woke from nightmares without screaming.
Why she could recognize different types of weapons by sound.
Eleanor had assumed Sophia was simply private.
Sophia had allowed her to believe that.
Because the truth was unbearable.
Sophia had been trained since she was fourteen.
Not in a military academy.
Not in any official institution.
In a place that technically didn't exist.
A place known only as The Black Room.
It had no address.
No public records.
No official name.
People who entered it were given new identities.
People who left it were never the same.
Sophia had been one of those people.
But there was one question she had never been able to answer.
Why had they chosen her?
She had always assumed the answer was connected to her father.
Victor Hayes.
The man Eleanor said had died in an accident twenty-one years ago.
The man Sophia had spent her childhood believing was nothing more than a photograph in a drawer.
Until tonight.
Someone had sent Eleanor a photograph of Victor.
And the message had said:
YOUR DAUGHTER REMEMBERS EVERYTHING.
Sophia knew what that meant.
They had finally decided to bring the past back.
And this time, they were coming for both of them.
---
Eleanor hadn't slept.
She sat in the library with every light switched on.
The photograph lay on the table in front of her.
Victor.
She picked it up again.
His face looked exactly as she remembered it.
The dark eyes.
The faint scar beneath his left eyebrow.
The confident smile.
Twenty-one years ago, she had received a phone call telling her that Victor's plane had gone down over the Mediterranean.
There had been no body.
No funeral.
No proper explanation.
Only paperwork.
Official reports.
And condolences.
Eleanor had wanted to believe he was dead.
It had been easier than believing the alternative.
But now she wasn't sure.
Her phone rang.
She looked at the screen.
Unknown number.
She answered.
"Hello?"
Silence.
"Who is this?"
A man's voice finally spoke.
"You should never have opened the envelope."
Eleanor stood.
"Who are you?"
"You need to leave the house."
Her heart began to race.
"Why?"
"Because they know you have the photograph."
"Who knows?"
The man breathed quietly into the phone.
Then he said:
"Your husband."
The call ended.
Eleanor stared at her phone.
Her hand trembled.
She immediately called her head of security.
"Get everyone inside the house."
"Ma'am?"
"Now."
A pause.
"Is there a problem?"
"Yes."
"What happened?"
Eleanor looked at Victor's photograph.
"My husband may be alive."
There was silence on the other end.
Then:
"That's impossible."
"I know."
---
Three hours later, Sophia returned.
She entered through the kitchen door just before dawn.
Eleanor was waiting for her.
She was sitting at the dining table.
Sophia stopped.
Neither woman spoke.
Eleanor looked at her daughter.
Sophia looked at the photograph beside her.
She knew immediately.
"You found it."
Eleanor's voice was barely audible.
"You knew."
Sophia didn't answer.
"You knew your father was alive."
"I suspected."
"Since when?"
Sophia looked away.
"Since I was sixteen."
Eleanor stood so quickly that the chair scraped across the floor.
"Sixteen?"
Sophia said nothing.
"You were sixteen years old."
"I know."
"You knew he might be alive for five years and never told me?"
"I was trying to protect you."
Eleanor laughed bitterly.
"Protect me?"
Her voice broke.
"You call lying to me protection?"
Sophia stepped forward.
"Mum—"
"Don't."
Eleanor raised her hand.
"Don't call me that right now."
Sophia stopped.
For the first time, she looked genuinely hurt.
Eleanor's eyes filled with tears.
"I spent twenty-one years believing your father was dead."
"He wanted you to believe that."
"Why?"
Sophia hesitated.
"Because people were looking for him."
"Who?"
Sophia looked toward the windows.
"People who don't forgive betrayal."
Eleanor stared at her.
"What did your father betray?"
Sophia's eyes returned to hers.
"An organization."
The word seemed to hang between them.
Eleanor slowly sat down.
"What organization?"
"I don't know its real name."
"Then what do you call it?"
Sophia didn't answer immediately.
Finally, she said:
"The Black Room."
Eleanor felt a strange sensation in her chest.
"What's that?"
Sophia pulled out a chair.
She sat opposite her mother.
"It's an organization that operates internationally. Intelligence. Private security. Assassinations. Information. Political manipulation."
Eleanor stared at her.
"You were involved with them."
Sophia's silence was enough.
Eleanor covered her mouth.
"No."
"Mum..."
"No."
"I didn't choose it."
"Then who did?"
Sophia looked down.
"Your husband."
Eleanor froze.
"My husband?"
Sophia nodded.
"Victor recruited them."
"Why would he recruit an organization like that?"
"He didn't."
Sophia looked at her mother.
"He built part of it."
The room went completely silent.
Eleanor stared at her daughter.
She suddenly remembered things she hadn't thought about in years.
Victor's late nights.
The unexplained phone calls.
The passports.
The people who occasionally arrived at their house and were introduced as business associates.
The locked study.
The arguments.
The night he disappeared.
She had spent years telling herself those memories meant nothing.
Now they all made sense.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because they were watching you."
"Who?"
"The people who trained me."
Eleanor's face went pale.
"You said you didn't choose this."
"I didn't."
"Then how did they get you?"
Sophia's eyes hardened.
"They took me."
Eleanor stopped breathing.
"What?"
"I was fourteen."
Her voice became quieter.
"I was coming home from school."
Eleanor's eyes filled with tears.
"I thought you were kidnapped."
"I was."
"Then why didn't you come home?"
Sophia looked at her.
"Because they made sure I couldn't."
Eleanor remembered that day.
The police.
The searches.
The newspapers.
The photographs of Sophia everywhere.
For three months, Eleanor had barely eaten.
She had begged.
Prayed.
Searched.
Then one morning, she received a letter.
There was no ransom demand.
No explanation.
Only one sentence.
Forget your daughter.
Eleanor had believed Sophia was dead.
Until six months later, Sophia came home.
Alive.
But different.
She never talked about where she had been.
Eleanor had been too grateful to have her back to ask enough questions.
Now she understood.
She hadn't rescued her daughter.
They had returned her.
"Why?" Eleanor whispered.
Sophia looked away.
"Because they wanted to see what I could become."
Eleanor's eyes hardened.
"And what did you become?"
Sophia didn't answer.
Eleanor already knew.
She looked at the bloodstained jacket still lying near the kitchen entrance.
Then she looked at her daughter.
"My daughter became an assassin."
Sophia lowered her head.
"I'm sorry."
Eleanor closed her eyes.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then a sound came from upstairs.
A door opening.
Both women looked toward the ceiling.
Sophia immediately stood.
"Stay here."
Eleanor grabbed her arm.
"No."
Sophia looked at her.
"I need to check."
"No. You are not leaving me again."
Sophia's expression softened.
"I'll come back."
"You don't know that."
Sophia looked into her mother's eyes.
"No."
She slowly pulled her arm free.
"But I promise I'll try."
She reached beneath her jacket.
Eleanor saw the weapon.
This time, she didn't scream.
She simply watched her daughter walk toward the staircase.
Sophia reached the first step.
Then stopped.
She looked up.
Someone was standing at the end of the hallway.
A man.
Tall.
Dressed in a dark suit.
His face was partly hidden by the shadows.
Sophia's hand tightened.
"Who are you?"
The man stepped into the light.
Sophia froze.
She knew that face.
She had seen it in photographs.
In classified files.
In nightmares.
The man smiled faintly.
"Hello, Sophia."
Her blood ran cold.
Because the man standing in front of her was the last person she expected to see.
Victor Hayes.
Her father.
The man Eleanor had believed dead for twenty-one years.
And he wasn't looking at Sophia.
He was looking past her.
Straight at Eleanor.
Then he said quietly:
"Eleanor, we need to talk about what happened the night I disappeared."
Eleanor stood motionless at the bottom of the stairs.
And Sophia realized that whatever had happened twenty-one years ago...
Her mother had been hiding a secret too.
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