THE SECRET FAMILY INHERITANCE

chapter 3

Chapter 3

Behind the bathroom counter, half-hidden in the tight gap against the wall, sat a thick white envelope.

I froze. My breath hitched in my throat. I hadn't put that envelope there. In fact, I had lived in this small apartment for over two years, and I knew every single corner of it. Someone had been inside my home while I was away.

With shaking fingers, I slowly reached down and picked it up. Written across the front in dark black ink were two words: Lily Carter.

My stomach turned. I broke the seal and pulled out the contents. It was a clear, sharp photograph. The picture showed me walking out of the private clinic earlier that morning, holding the envelope with my pregnancy report tight against my side.

I turned the envelope over. Written boldly on the back in messy, jagged letters was a single sentence:

I know your secret.

My heart began racing wildly against my ribs. A cold sweat broke out on the back of my neck. Whoever took that photo had followed me to the clinic. They knew about the baby.

Before I could even process the sudden terror washing over me, my phone burst into a loud, shrill ring. The sudden noise made me jump, nearly dropping the envelope onto the floor. I looked at the screen. It was an unknown number.

I swiped the screen with a trembling thumb and brought the phone to my ear.

"Hello?" I whispered, my voice sounding small and fragile in the quiet bathroom.

"Is this Lily Carter?" a man's sharp, panicked voice came through the speaker.

"Yes," I answered, gripping the edge of the sink to steady myself. "Who is this?"

"This is Lucas. Adrian Blackwood's personal assistant," the man said quickly, breathing heavily into the phone. "Miss Carter, I don't know how to tell you this..."

My stomach tightened into a hard knot. "Tell me what? What's going on, Lucas?"

"Mr. Blackwood is gone," Lucas blurted out. "He disappeared last night."

"What?" I gasped, my mind instantly replaying the moment I threw the broken watch at Adrian's feet in the hotel room. "What do you mean he disappeared?"

"We've searched his main apartment, his downtown office, and his private residence in the countryside," Lucas explained, his voice shaking with stress. "He isn't anywhere. And he left his personal phone behind on the desk in his suite."

A cold spike of fear ran through me. Adrian was a powerful, cautious billionaire. He never went anywhere without his phone or his security detail.

"What about his car?" I asked, my instincts kicking in.

"We found his black sports car abandoned on the dark stretch of road near the old Blackwood estate," Lucas said softly.

My breath caught in my throat. "The old estate?"

"Yes," Lucas continued, taking a deep breath before dropping the real blow. "And Miss Carter... there's something else. We found blood on the driver's side door and on the seat."

My hand moved on its own, resting over my flat stomach. The bathroom seemed to spin around me. "Is he..." I couldn't even bring myself to say the word. Is he dead?

"We don't know," Lucas replied grimly. "We don't know anything yet."

I stood paralyzed. Hearing that Adrian—the man who had just broken my heart, the man who was the father of my unborn child—might be hurt or killed sent a wave of overwhelming terror through me. I didn't want to see him, but I certainly didn't want him dead.

Without saying another word, I ended the call and let my arm drop to my side.

A second later, my phone buzzed with an incoming text message. It was from Lucas:

Do not tell anyone about our conversation. No police, no press. Keep this a secret.

I frowned at the screen, my terror quickly morphing into suspicion. Why keep it a secret? Adrian was a high-profile billionaire. If he was missing and potentially bleeding somewhere out in the city, every police officer in the state should be looking for him. Secrets were what got us into this mess in the first place.

I immediately pressed the call button and put the phone back to my ear. Lucas answered on the very second ring.

"Miss Carter?"

"Why should I keep this a secret?" I demanded, my voice growing firm. "What is really going on here? And why did you contact me of all people? I'm nobody to him anymore!"

There was a long silence on the other end of the line. I could hear Lucas taking a ragged breath.

"Because before he disappeared last night, Mr. Blackwood gave me one strict instruction," Lucas said softly. "He told me that if anything strange ever happened to him, I had to find you immediately."

I froze. "Why me?"

"He said..." Lucas hesitated for a moment. "He said, 'Lily is the only person in this world I can truly trust.'"

A bitter, hysterical laugh almost escaped my throat. Trust? The man who said I was just a pawn in his plot? The irony was suffocating.

"Where are you right now?" I asked, shaking my head to clear the fog.

"I'm at my apartment trying to coordinate with his private security," Lucas replied.

"Okay," I said quietly, ending the call before he could ask anything else.

I stood in the center of my bathroom, staring at the creepy photo in my hand and then at my silent phone. Nothing was adding up. Absolutely nothing.

First, I discover Adrian's secret revenge plot. Then I find out I'm pregnant. Then someone sneaks into my home to leave a threatening message. And now, the most powerful man in the city vanishes into thin air, leaving blood behind and claiming I was the only one he trusted?

I had to find answers myself. I couldn't sit in my apartment waiting to become a victim.

I quickly changed out of my clothes into a simple dark hoodie, plain jeans, and comfortable sneakers. I slipped the mysterious photo into my pocket, grabbed my handbag, and headed straight out the door. My target was Adrian's private residence—a hidden, heavily guarded villa on the edge of the city that very few people knew about.

In less than thirty minutes, I was standing outside the massive iron gates of the estate. The entire property was dead quiet. The usual guards who stood at the front gates were completely gone. The grand front lawn was shrouded in eerie shadows under the gray afternoon sky.

I used the spare key hidden inside my small silver key ring—a key Adrian had given me a year ago—to unlock the heavy front door.

The front doors swung open with a quiet creak. Inside, the grand house was cold and still, like a graveyard. I walked through the high-ceilinged hallway, my sneakers making soft squeaking sounds on the polished marble floor.

I searched every main room downstairs. The grand living room, the formal dining hall, the kitchen, and his personal library. Nothing was out of place. There were no signs of a struggle, no broken glass, and no clues.

Finally, I climbed the sweeping staircase and stopped at the end of the second-floor hallway, standing right in front of Adrian's private study.

This room was off-limits to everyone. The door was made of heavy dark wood with a glowing digital keypad installed near the handle. It required a six-digit password to open.

I stepped up to the panel. I tried his birthday first: 081294.

Access Denied, the keypad beeped softly, glowing red.

I tried the date he founded his multi-billion-dollar company: 040119.

Access Denied.

I took a deep breath, staring at the glowing blue numbers. A foolish, faint hope fluttered in my chest. I lifted my finger and typed in my own birthday: 102498.

Click.

The lock mechanism slid back, and the keypad flashed bright green.

Access Granted.

My chest felt heavy. He had used my birthday for his most secure room. I pushed the heavy door open and stepped inside.

The study was dark, illuminated only by the faint light coming through the tall window. Right in the center of the dark oak desk sat a framed photograph. I walked closer and looked down. It was a picture of me, smiling brightly at a beach last summer, completely unaware that he was taking it.

I quickly looked away, swallowing the lump in my throat. I didn't want to remember those fake, happy times.

Right next to the frame lay a thick black folder. I picked it up and opened the cover. Inside were pages upon pages of complex financial records, offshore bank accounts, wire transfers, and corporate documents. As I flipped through the papers, one specific name kept appearing over and over again in bold red ink:

Blackwood Holdings — Project Lazarus.

"What is Project Lazarus?" I whispered to myself.

I turned another page. My eyes widened in shock. Tens of millions of dollars were moving through a web of shadow companies. Some of those companies had been shut down years ago, while others went bankrupt five years ago.

I stared at the numbers, my mind spinning. Was Adrian being blackmailed? Or was the story much bigger than I had imagined. Was he actually trying to uncover something else?

I closed the folder tightly, determined to keep searching the room for any clue about where he might have been taken.

As I stepped around the heavy desk, I noticed a large painted portrait of the Blackwood family hanging on the wall behind his chair. It was hanging slightly crooked, tilted to the left.

Knowing how strictly neat Adrian was, a crooked picture frame was completely out of place.

I stepped up to the portrait and reached out to straighten it. But as soon as my fingers touched the heavy golden frame, a quiet mechanical click echoed behind the wall.

Suddenly, a portion of the bookcase to my right slid backward with a low hum, revealing a hidden door that opened into a pitch-black room.

My heart thumped wildly against my ribs. I pulled out my phone, turned on the flashlight, and slowly stepped through the hidden entrance.

Inside was a secret security control room. Bank after bank of computer monitors covered the far wall. Most of them were dark, but one giant central monitor was still glowing, displaying a paused video feed.

My hands trembled as I reached out and hit the spacebar on the illuminated keyboard to play the video.

The security video played. I watched in total horror as a dark van pulled up next to Adrian's car in the late-night darkness. Two masked men in tactical gear jumped out and went into Adrian's house.

The men dragged Adrian's limp body into the back of the van. But just before the doors slammed shut, a third person stepped out of Adrian's house.

The figure slowly turned towards the hidden camera. My breath caught. I knew that face. “No….”

My phone slipped from my hand.

The man on the screen was someone I knew.