CHAPTER3
1040 Words
The air inside the safe house was heavy, like it remembered everything that had happened here.
Sophie stood by the window, watching rain slip down the window glass in thin lines. Her heart wouldn’t stop racing.
She was alive.
Her sister was engaged to her husband.
And someone had tried to bury her like a secret.
She kept hearing Daniel’s words from last night: “More than one person wanted you gone.”
“Do you remember anything?” Daniel asked from behind her.
Sophie turned. “Bits and pieces. Nothing clear.”
“What kind of bits?”
She sat on the edge of the couch, fingers wrapped around the locket. “I remember a fight… I don’t know with who. I was shouting. I was angry. There was fire. Smoke. Then… nothing.”
Daniel handed her a small notebook and pen. “Write everything down, no matter how random. Names, images, feelings. It might come back in pieces.”
Sophie looked at the pen like it weighed a hundred pounds. “Will it help?”
“I hope so,” Daniel said. “But we need more than your memory. We need proof.”
He stood, grabbed his car keys. “We’re going to the storage unit.”
Sophie hesitated. “Won’t they be watching you?”
“I left Blackwood security a year ago. Quietly. No one’s been tracking me since.”
“Why did you leave?”
Daniel’s jaw tightened. “Because the company changed after you died. Your death… changed everything.”
Sophie grabbed her coat. “Let’s go.”
The storage facility was located on the far edge of Queens, behind a chain-link fence, topped with barbed wire. It looked like a place where secrets were buried.
Daniel keyed in a passcode. The gate groaned open.
They moved quickly down a cold corridor of concrete and steel. Daniel stopped at Unit 309, unlocking it with a swipe card.
Inside, dust hung in the air. There were Boxes, file cabinets and crates at one side.
Sophie felt like she was standing in a graveyard of her old self.
“These were your files,” Daniel said. “Your projects, your business accounts, your personal storage.”
“I worked with Blackwood?” Sophie asked.
“You ran one of their foundations. The Blackwood Health Initiative. You managed all the money that went into hospitals, shelters, medical grants.”
She blinked. “That doesn’t sound like something someone would kill me over.”
Daniel was already digging through a drawer. “You’d be surprised what money can do to people.”
Sophie opened a box labeled S. Blackwood – Q4 Reports. Inside were receipts, donation files, spreadsheets.
It looked normal.
Until she saw one folder, shoved to the bottom.
It was blank.
She opened it slowly.
Her fingers froze.
Inside were printed emails—her name, her signature, but something was off. The emails discussed large wire transfers to offshore accounts. Money she supposedly sent.
But Sophie knew—she didn’t write these.
“Daniel…” she whispered, holding out the papers.
He read them, brow furrowing.
“Forged,” he said after a long pause. “Some of these accounts… I’ve seen them before. That’s Blackwood money.”
“And they used my name.”
“Yes.”
Sophie’s voice dropped. “So they framed me?”
Daniel looked grim. “Or tried to.”
A chill ran through her.
“Why would anyone do that?”
“Because you were in the way,” he said.
Then he pulled out something else from another drawer.
A flash drive. Labeled only with one word: Phoenix.
He slipped it into his jacket.
“Let’s go,” he said. “We’ll check this at the house. I don’t want to be here too long.”
But just as they stepped outside, Sophie froze.
A car.
Parked across the street.
Windows tinted.
It hadn’t been there when they arrived.
“Daniel,” she whispered.
He saw it too.
“Stay behind me.”
They moved fast, back to the SUV. Daniel kept checking the mirrors. The car didn’t follow.
But Sophie could feel it—like eyes on the back of her neck.
Someone knew she was alive.
And now, someone knew she was looking.
Back at the safe house, Daniel plugged in the flash drive.
It was encrypted.
“Can you get in?” she asked.
“I can try. But this isn’t something you password c***k in an hour. Whoever protected this file knew what they were doing.”
Sophie sat on the couch, her mind racing.
“What if this is it?” She whispered. “What if that drive has everything?”
Daniel didn’t look up. “Then we protect it. And we move fast. Because if they knew you were here—”
“They’ll try again,” she finished.
He nodded in agreement.
Just then, Sophie’s eyes landed on a photo frame lying flat on the side table. She picked it up.
It was her. And Damien.
They were smiling. Arms around each other.
She looked younger. Lighter.
“I loved him,” she whispered. “Didn’t I?”
Daniel paused. “Yeah. You did.”
She stared at the frame for a long time.
“Do you think he knew about the money?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “But if he did… he wasn’t the man you thought he was.”
Sophie set the photo down.
Her hands were shaking, but her voice wasn’t.
“Then I need to find out who he really is.” She Said
That night, she couldn’t sleep.
Not because of fear.
Because of clarity.
Someone had tried to kill her.
And now, five years later, they still had power. Still had money. Still had secrets buried deep.
But she was no longer buried.
She was breathing.
And if she had to dig up every lie, every betrayal, every memory she’d lost—
She would.
She thought about Damien. About the man who once kissed her like the world would end.
And the man who now stood beside her sister.
Which one was the real Damien?
She would find out.
- Writer
