Chapter 9 - THE FATHER AT THE ABANDONED FARMHOUSE
Robert called forty minutes later.
This time Sofia answered.
“Where is my child?”
No greeting.
No tears.
No “Dad.”
Just the question.
Robert remained silent for a moment.
Then:
“Safe.”
Sofia closed her eyes.
“You have ten seconds before I give the phone to the police.”
“I know.”
“Where?”
“I’ll send an address.”
“Why did you take my baby?”
“To protect him.”
Sofia froze.
“Him?”
Leo stared at her.
Robert continued.
“Your son.”
Sofia covered her mouth.
A boy.
Hope had a twin brother.
“Why did the hospital tell me there was only one?”
“Because Janet Greene changed the records.”
“Why?”
“Because I asked her to.”
The admission struck harder than expected.
“You stole my son.”
“I saved him.”
“From who?”
“From Samuel.”
Sofia’s voice broke.
“You keep using the word protect like it erases what you did.”
Robert went quiet.
“You’re right.”
That answer made her angrier.
“Bring him back.”
“I can’t.”
“Then I’m coming to you.”
“No police.”
Detective Hale shook his head immediately.
Sofia ignored him.
“Send the address.”
A text arrived.
An abandoned farmhouse forty-five minutes outside the city.
Sofia turned toward Hale.
“I’m going.”
“So are we.”
Robert had demanded no police.
Hale didn’t care.
Three unmarked vehicles followed at a distance.
Leo drove Sofia and Rebecca.
Emma remained under hospital protection with Hope.
Nobody spoke during the trip.
The farmhouse stood beyond miles of empty fields.
One light burned inside.
Sofia stepped out before Leo fully stopped the car.
“Sofia!”
She ran toward the porch.
The front door opened.
Robert Bennett appeared.
Older.
Gray hair.
Thin face.
The same eyes.
Sofia stopped.
For nine years she had imagined him dead.
For nine years she had remembered his laugh.
His hands teaching her to drive.
The way he used to call her “Sof.”
Now he stood twenty feet away holding a newborn baby.
Her son.
Sofia’s knees nearly failed.
Robert whispered:
“Hi, sweetheart.”
She crossed the distance.
Then slapped him.
Hard.
He didn’t react.
She took the baby from his arms.
The infant made a tiny sound.
Sofia sobbed.
“Oh my God.”
She checked his face.
His fingers.
His toes.
A tiny crescent birthmark rested behind his right ear.
The same mark Robert had.
Leo came up behind them.
He stopped when he saw his father.
Robert looked at him.
“Leo.”
Leo’s eyes filled.
“You don’t get to say my name like you came home from a business trip.”
Robert looked down.
“I know.”
Rebecca reached the porch.
Robert stared at his wife.
She began crying.
“You coward.”
He nodded.
“Yes.”
Detective Hale emerged from the darkness.
Robert didn’t run.
“I knew you’d bring police.”
Sofia hugged her son.
“Explain everything.”
Robert sat on the porch steps.
“Samuel Greene helped me fake my death.”
“With whose body?” Hale asked.
Robert closed his eyes.
“A man named Peter Lawson.”
“Did you kill him?”
“No.”
“He died from an overdose two days earlier.”
Hale’s expression hardened.
“You used a dead man’s body.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I needed the people stealing from Bennett Development to believe I was dead.”
“Who was stealing?”
“Samuel.”
Everyone froze.
Victoria’s uncle.
Robert continued.
“Samuel discovered old fraudulent property transfers made by my father decades earlier.”
“Instead of exposing them, he blackmailed me.”
“What did he want?”
“Control.”
“Money.”
“Eventually the company.”
Leo stared.
“And Victoria?”
“His niece became part of the plan later.”
“Did you send her into my life?”
“No.”
“Samuel did.”
Leo’s face collapsed.
“She was targeting me from the beginning.”
“Yes.”
“Did she ever actually love me?”
Robert hesitated.
“I think she eventually did.”
Leo laughed bitterly.
“That worked out well.”
Sofia interrupted.
“My son.”
Robert looked at the baby.
“Janet Greene contacted me after your emergency delivery.”
“Why?”
“She said Samuel knew you’d had twins.”
“And?”
“She believed he planned to take one child and use the baby to control the trust.”
“So you took him first.”
“Yes.”
“Then erased his records.”
“Yes.”
“You let me think I had one baby.”
Robert’s eyes filled.
“I planned to return him as soon as Samuel was arrested.”
“You had six days!”
“I was trying to find him.”
“Samuel?”
“Yes.”
Hale stepped closer.
“Where is Samuel now?”
Robert looked toward the fields.
“That’s the problem.”
A vehicle appeared in the distance.
Headlights.
Fast.
Robert stood.
“Get inside.”
Hale reached for his weapon.
“Whose car?”
Robert’s face drained.
“Samuel found us.”
The vehicle accelerated toward the farmhouse.
Another appeared behind it.
Then a third.
Sofia clutched her son.
Leo pushed her inside.
Gunshots cracked across the field.
Windows shattered.
Rebecca screamed.
Hale’s officers returned fire.
Robert grabbed Sofia’s arm.
“Cellar!”
They rushed toward the kitchen.
Another bullet tore through the wall.
Robert lifted a trapdoor.
“Go!”
Sofia climbed down holding the baby.
Leo followed.
Rebecca next.
Robert started closing the door.
Sofia grabbed his sleeve.
“Dad!”
For one second, he looked exactly like the father she remembered.
“Take care of both babies.”
Then he shut the trapdoor above them.
Moments later, footsteps thundered across the kitchen.
May you like
A gunshot exploded directly overhead.
Then silence.
