Chapter 47
I stared at Rachel’s final text message until the words burned into my retinas, my heart stopping cold.
Time to finish what we started. Remember this address?“
Below was the address I’d spent six years trying to forget–my childhood home.
The place where Robert had tormented me.
The place I’d fled after striking him with that lamp, certain I’d never
My hands trembled as I called Marcus, then Isolde, my
ry voice barely audible over my thundering pulse
“Rachel’s escaped,” I managed. “She knows the address. Robert’s old house. She wants me to go there.
Thirty minutes later, Marcus and Isolde burst into my apartment.
I’d already packed a small bag with medication and essentials–the f
familiar routine of preparing to run.
you can’t seriously be going to
in that he
hellhole,” Isolde said, eyes..
*Rachel broke out of prison to send me that address,” I replied. “She wants me, not the police.”
Blake called with grave news:
Rachel had stabbed two guards during her escape. He insisted on alerting the FBI, but I hesitated.
“If they get involved, she’ll escalate,” I said. “She wants to finish what Robert couldn’t six years ago.”
“She wants to kill you?” Isolde’s face paled.
“Or worse,” I answered. “Rachel was always more creative than Robert.”
I accessed a traffic camers near the old house–a surveillance system
I’d maintained for years.
Lights blazed inside, with an unfamiliar car in the driveway beside my mother’s sedan.
“That a my mom s car,” I whispered, horror washing through me.
Minutes later, a new text arrived: “Mommy misses you, little sister. Time is running out. -R Attached was a photo: my mother bound to a chair, eyes wide with terror, mouth covered with duct tape.
Any hesitation vanished. I decided to go immediately, forming a quick plan. Marcus would drive, Isolde would maintain communications, and I would confront Rachel
On the drive, memories flooded back with sickening clarity.
Six years of running, and now I was racing straight into the nightmare I’d fled.
“Six years,” I said, voice oddly calm. “Ive been running for six years. I thought leaving that place meant escaping the nightmares”
“It’s different now,” Isolde said. “Six years ago, you were alone. Now you have us,”
Elke texted that Caspian and an FBI team were twenty minutes behind us. “Stall for time, he urged. ‘Don’t act alone.”
The house looked exactly as I remembered a modest suburban home hiding so much darkness.
Marcus would enter through the back, Isolde would monitor from outside, and I would approach!
ing on broken glass, the weight of memory threatening to crush me.
from the front.
na fast – Robert’s rigars and my
y mother a
a cheap perfume
The house stund unchanged, as though time had frozen within these walls
Chapter 47
In the kitchen, Sarah sat at the dining table, wrists bound to the chair, mouth sealed with tape,
Across from fri, Rachel lounged with casual elegance, sipping wine as though hosting a macabre family dinner.
Finally home, little sister,” she pured, “Tve been waiting six years for this moment,”
“Let her go, Rachel,” I demanded. “Your problem is with mr, not her,”
Rachel laughed hallowly,
This is a family matter. The three of us–the last of the Miller family.”
She rose, wine glass in one hand, knife in the other.
Baddy talked about you the entire time he was in prison. He missed you, Sage.”
That monster doesn’t deserve to talk about me,” I hissed,
Rachel’s expression darkened,
“That monster is my father. You hit him with a lamp and left him bleeding for three hours.”
She circled closer, the knife catching the light
Suddenly, she cocked her head, as though listening to something only she could hear.
“Yes, Daddy,” she murmured to empty air. Til do exactly as you said.”
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