Chapter 10 - THE TUNNEL BENEATH THE FACTORY
The hidden door opened into a brick tunnel beneath the mill.
Helena forced Clara down a narrow staircase.
Behind them, shouting echoed through the factory.
Emergency lights flashed above the old machinery.
Clara tried to slow her breathing.
The cold object against her side was a small knife.
Helena’s grip remained surprisingly strong.
“You were always supposed to stay invisible,” Helena whispered.
“I didn’t know I existed.”
“That was the beauty of it.”
They reached an underground loading tunnel once used to move fabric between buildings.
An old car waited near the far exit.
Warren had prepared an escape route.
Clara looked over her shoulder.
“You won’t make it out.”
“Warren has protected this family from consequences for thirty years.”
“He was arrested upstairs.”
Helena faltered for half a second.
Clara used the moment to pull away.
The knife sliced through the remaining lace on her sleeve but did not touch her skin.
Clara ran toward a steel support column.
Helena followed.
“You think Evelyn will become a mother now?” Helena shouted.
“You think she will suddenly know how to love you?”
Clara stopped.
“No.”
The answer surprised Helena.
“I don’t need a fantasy,” Clara continued.
“I know what she did to me.”
“I know what you did too.”
“Then you know I saved you from becoming her.”
“You stole twenty-eight years from me.”
“I gave you a normal life.”
“Miriam gave me a life.”
“You gave me a lie.”
Helena moved closer.
“Evelyn would have turned you into another Ashford weapon.”
“Perhaps.”
Clara glanced toward the staircase.
“But that choice belonged to me.”
Helena raised the knife.
Before she could move, Julian emerged from the darkness.
He stepped between them.
“Let her go.”
Helena laughed bitterly.
“The obedient little orphan finally found his courage.”
“My father found his first.”
Victor appeared behind Julian.
His face was pale from the injuries in the cabin, but he stood without assistance.
Helena stared at him.
“You should have disappeared.”
“I did.”
Victor looked at Julian.
“And it cost me my son.”
Helena pressed the knife closer to Clara.
Victor stopped walking.
“You were never supposed to know about him,” Helena said.
“I knew the moment I saw his photograph in the newspaper.”
“Then why stay silent?”
“Because you promised Anna would survive if I remained gone.”
Helena smiled.
“She was already dying.”
Victor’s face collapsed.
Julian did not look away from him.
Clara realized this was the first time father and son had stood in the same room knowing the truth.
Helena had stolen that relationship too.
Sirens sounded beyond the tunnel.
Helena looked toward the waiting car.
Clara saw calculation return to her eyes.
She pushed Clara toward Julian and ran.
Victor moved after her.
Helena reached the car and turned the ignition.
The engine roared.
The vehicle raced toward the tunnel exit.
Victor pulled an emergency lever beside the wall.
A steel fire barrier dropped across the opening.
The car struck it and stopped violently.
Helena remained conscious behind the wheel.
Daniel Cross reached the tunnel seconds later.
He pulled open the driver’s door and placed Helena under arrest.
Clara returned to the factory floor.
Miriam was alive.
Evelyn knelt beside her, cutting the restraints from her wrists.
Warren Cole lay facedown beneath the control of two agents.
It appeared the nightmare had ended.
Then Daniel searched Warren’s coat.
He found a passport.
Three foreign bank cards.
And a folded document bearing Evelyn’s signature.
It transferred ownership of the Ashford estate and controlling shares of the company to Helena.
The signature had been notarized that morning.
Evelyn stared at the page.
“I never signed this.”
May you like
Warren smiled from the floor.
“You signed it twenty-two years ago.”
