Chapter 6 - Bloodlines
Eleanor shoved Leo behind her again, preparing to fight the corrupt doctor to the death.
But Dr. Vance lowered the heavy shotgun, his hands trembling violently.
“We don't have much time, Eleanor, his primary guards are moving to the east wing,” Vance said, gasping for air.
“Why should I trust a single word you say?” Eleanor demanded, refusing to move.
“Because I couldn't live with the guilt anymore,” the older man pleaded, tears mixing with the rain on his face.
“I drugged you for five years, but I draw the line at letting him murder a child tonight.”
Eleanor stared into his panicked eyes and realized he was telling the absolute truth.
She grabbed Leo’s hand and followed the doctor out into the chaotic, flashing corridor.
“Sarah wrote that Leo is the heir,” Eleanor said as they ran down the hallway. “What does that mean?”
Dr. Vance stopped at a security keypad and rapidly punched in an override code.
“You never lost your baby in that crash, Eleanor,” Vance confessed, not looking her in the eye.
“Sarah was conscious after the wreck, and she knew Richard had tampered with the car.”
The heavy security doors hissed open, revealing a dark stairwell leading underground.
“She forced me to deliver the baby in the wreckage before the paramedics arrived,” Vance explained rapidly.
“She took him and ran into the woods to protect him from Richard, making me swear to tell everyone the child died.”
Eleanor sobbed as they ran down the concrete stairs, her heart exploding with a mixture of overwhelming rage and profound love.
Leo wasn't her nephew.
This brave, dirty little boy who had walked into a gala to save her was her own biological son.
They reached the basement level, a dark, damp corridor lined with heavy containment cells.
“Sarah is in cell number four, she has been locked in here since Richard’s men finally caught her last month,” Vance said.
He handed Eleanor a ring of heavy brass keys.
Eleanor ran to the heavy iron door marked with a painted number four.
Her hands shook so badly she could barely get the heavy key into the rusted lock.
She finally turned it, the mechanism groaning as the heavy door swung open.
“Sarah!” Eleanor cried out, bursting into the dark room to finally embrace her sister.
But the small, windowless cell was completely empty.
The mattress was overturned, and there was a massive, fresh pool of blood on the concrete floor.
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Glistening in the center of the dark red blood was a single, flawless pearl earring.
It was Eleanor’s own pearl earring, the exact one she had been wearing on the tragic night of the car crash five years ago.
