Sisters
741 Words
The metallic click of the pistol echoed through the bedroom.
Nadia slowly raised her hands.
Adrian turned first.
Standing in the doorway was a woman dressed in black, her face hidden beneath a hood.
The g*n never wavered.
“Step away from the box,” she said.
Nadia’s heart pounded.
“I know that voice…”
The woman smiled faintly.
“You should.”
She lowered the hood.
Adrian staggered back.
“N-No…”
The woman standing before them had Vivian’s face.
Not similar.
Not almost.
Exactly the same.
Nadia’s breath caught.
“Vivian…”
The woman tilted her head.
“That’s one of my names.”
⸻
Adrian kept his weapon lowered.
“How are you alive?”
“I was never where they said I was.”
“The ferry?”
“A performance.”
“The body they recovered?”
“A substitute.”
“The woman arrested on the news?”
“Another substitute.”
Nadia stared in disbelief.
“How many women have lived as Vivian Cole?”
The woman smiled sadly.
“Too many.”
She stepped closer.
“They didn’t create one Vivian.”
“They created a legacy.”
⸻
Nadia looked at the birth certificate.
“It says we’re sisters.”
“We are.”
“Then why did you leave me?”
Vivian’s eyes filled with tears.
“I didn’t leave you.”
“I lost you.”
She slowly holstered her pistol.
“The night our father died, I tried to take you away.”
“But The Custodians arrived first.”
“They erased your memories.”
“And they made the world believe Emily Hart had died.”
⸻
Adrian finally spoke.
“You’ve been hiding for nineteen years.”
Vivian nodded.
“I’ve spent every day trying to destroy Project Phoenix.”
“Why didn’t you contact us?”
“I couldn’t.”
“They watched every move I made.”
She looked at Nadia.
“The moment they realized you were alive…”
“…they started hunting you again.”
⸻
Nadia stepped closer.
“I need the truth.”
Vivian took a deep breath.
“Our father discovered that Project Phoenix wasn’t only about stolen identities.”
“It was about inheritance.”
“Wealth.”
“Political power.”
“Control.”
“The Custodians replaced children in powerful families.”
“When those children became adults…”
“…they inherited fortunes they were never meant to own.”
Adrian finished the thought.
“And The Custodians controlled them through secrets.”
Vivian nodded.
“Exactly.”
⸻
She picked up the metal box and unlocked it.
Inside were dozens of documents.
Old photographs.
A necklace identical to Nadia’s.
And a leather-bound journal.
On the first page was written:
Daniel Hart – Personal Investigation
Nadia opened it carefully.
Her father’s handwriting covered every page.
Names.
Dates.
Maps.
Evidence.
Then she reached the final page.
There, underlined three times, were the words:
The founder of The Custodians isn’t dead. He has been hiding in plain sight for twenty-five years.
Beneath the sentence was a photograph.
Nadia stared at it.
The room seemed to tilt.
“No…”
It was the elderly man they had seen watching them from the mansion.
Vivian whispered,
“His name is Arthur Cole.”
Adrian clenched his fists.
“The father of Vivian Cole.”
Vivian shook her head.
“No.”
She looked directly at Nadia.
“He adopted me.”
The silence was deafening.
“He isn’t my father.”
“He’s the man who stole me.”
⸻
Suddenly, every light in the house went out.
Darkness swallowed the room.
Then came the sound of helicopters overhead.
Searchlights pierced the windows.
Car doors slammed outside.
Voices shouted through loudspeakers.
“This property is surrounded!”
Adrian rushed to the window.
“They found us.”
Vivian closed the journal.
“No.”
She looked at the others with grim resolve.
“They’ve come for what’s inside the box.”
Nadia clutched the journal to her chest.
“Then we don’t let them have it.”
A powerful explosion rocked the front of the house.
The walls cracked.
The staircase collapsed.
The siege had begun.
End of Episode 10.
Cliffhanger
As smoke fills the hallway, Arthur Cole’s voice booms through the loudspeaker:
“Emily… Vivian… come outside. One of you belongs to me. The other must die.”
- Writer
