Chapter 4 - THE SECRET BENEATH THE FLOORBOARDS
My mother had never spoken the name Voss before that night.
Now she was staring at Adrian as though he carried every nightmare she'd spent twenty-eight years trying to forget.
"Mom, sit down."
She shook her head.
"Not while he's here."
Adrian stepped backward.
"I'll wait outside."
For once, I didn't argue.
He looked at me.
"If you need anything, Marcus is downstairs."
I nodded.
The moment the door closed, my mother collapsed onto the couch.
I knelt beside her.
"Who is Richard Carter?"
She covered her face.
"Oh, Sophie."
"Is he my father?"
Her silence felt like an answer.
I took her hand.
"Please."
She looked at me through tears.
"Yes."
The word struck like lightning.
My father was alive.
Or had been alive.
And she'd spent my entire life telling me he was dead.
"Why?"
My voice cracked.
"Why would you do that?"
She began crying harder.
"Because he was involved with dangerous people."
"Like Adrian?"
"Like Adrian's father."
I sat back.
"Tell me everything."
Mom took a shaky breath.
"Richard Carter wasn't a construction worker. He was a financial investigator."
I stared.
"What?"
"He worked for a private auditing firm. Twenty-nine years ago, he discovered unusual transfers connected to several companies controlled by Victor Voss."
Adrian's father.
The man whose funeral had reportedly drawn half of Chicago's most powerful families.
"Richard wanted to report what he found," Mom continued. "Then someone started following us."
"Who?"
"I never knew."
She wiped her cheeks.
"Richard disappeared when I was six months pregnant. A week later, someone delivered a message saying he was dead."
I frowned.
"What message?"
Mom stood slowly.
"There's something I should have given you years ago."
She led me into her bedroom.
Then removed a loose wooden panel beneath the dresser.
Inside was an old metal box.
She opened it.
Photographs.
Newspaper clippings.
A faded wedding certificate.
And a small envelope with my name written across the front.
For Sophie, when she's ready.
My hands trembled.
"Who wrote this?"
"Your father."
I carefully opened the envelope.
Inside was a letter.
My beautiful daughter,
If you're reading this, then I've failed to come home.
Please don't hate your mother for protecting you.
Everything I did was meant to give you the chance to grow up without fear.
Tears blurred the ink.
I kept reading.
There is something I discovered that powerful men will do anything to hide.
But the truth isn't in the money.
It's in the children.
I frowned.
"The children?"
Mom's expression changed.
"I never understood that part."
I unfolded the final page.
A list of names appeared.
Twenty-three children.
Dates of birth.
Hospital records.
And one name circled in red.
Sophie Elizabeth Carter.
Beside my name was a handwritten notation.
PROJECT HARBOR — SUBJECT 17.
I looked up at my mother.
She was shaking.
Then I noticed another document beneath the letter.
It was a birth certificate.
My name appeared at the top.
May you like
But the mother's name wasn't Helen Carter.
It was Margaret Whitcomb Ellis.
