Chapter 10 - THE CHILD MALCOLM HIDArabella did not understand the words at first.
Her daughter.
The room swayed.
“No,” she whispered.
Malcolm smiled, blood dripping from his wrist onto the floor. “Her name is Lila. Though I doubt she knows it.”
Arabella lunged at him.
Dante caught her around the waist before she could tear Malcolm apart with her bare hands.
“My daughter?” she screamed. “My daughter?”
Caleb looked as if he might collapse.
“I didn’t know,” he said. “Arabella, I swear to God, I didn’t know.”
She turned on him.
“Is she yours?”
Caleb’s mouth opened.
No answer came fast enough.
Arabella’s face crumpled.
“Is she yours?”
Caleb looked at the floor.
“I don’t know.”
Dante almost shot him then.
Only Arabella standing between them stopped him.
Malcolm laughed softly.
“Such touching confusion.”
Dante shoved Malcolm into Nico’s custody.
“Where is the room?”
Malcolm said nothing.
Dante pressed the barrel of his gun against Malcolm’s injured hand.
“Where?”
“Beneath the east fountain,” Malcolm hissed.
Arabella ran.
This time Dante did not stop her.
They tore through the passage, down narrow stairs, across the cellar, and out toward the ruined terrace where the white roses once grew. Rain had turned the black stone fountain slick and shining.
Nico found the release beneath a carved thorn.
A section of ground opened.
Arabella descended first.
Dante followed with a flashlight.
The underground corridor was clean. Too clean. White tile. Drainage vents. Cameras. A place built by men who called cruelty an arrangement.
At the end was a steel door.
A keypad blinked red.
Caleb pushed forward. “I know Malcolm’s codes.”
Dante stepped aside.
Caleb entered six digits.
Wrong.
The keypad flashed.
Arabella stared at him.
Caleb swallowed and tried again.
Wrong.
Dante grabbed him by the collar.
“One more.”
Caleb’s hands shook.
He entered Arabella’s birthday.
The lock clicked.
Arabella made a sound that was half sob, half fury.
He had used her birthday to lock away her child.
The door opened.
The little girl on the bed turned toward them.
She did not scream.
That was the worst part.
She simply watched, silent and still, as if she had learned screams changed nothing.
Arabella stepped inside slowly.
“Lila?”
The girl blinked.
Arabella knelt several feet away.
“My name is Arabella.”
The child tilted her head.
Dante stood at the door, holding everyone else back.
Arabella’s voice broke.
“I think I’m your mother.”
The little girl looked at Arabella’s neck.
Then she reached up and pulled down the collar of her own shirt.
At the base of her neck was the same broken crown birthmark.
Smaller.
Darker.
Arabella covered her mouth.
Lila spoke one word.
“Bird?”
Arabella froze.
“What did you say?”
The little girl pointed at her.
“Bird. The lady in the wall said Bird would come.”
Arabella turned cold.
“What lady?”
Lila pointed toward a second door hidden behind the bed.
Dante moved quickly and opened it.
Inside was another room.
Empty now.
But scratched into the wall were four words.
ARABELLA IS STILL ALIVE.
Beneath them was a name.
MARA VALE.
May you like
Arabella’s mother.
The woman everyone said had died sixteen years ago.
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