Chapter 1 - The Locked Door
Vanessa did not make it far.
I caught her halfway down the long hallway.
My hand clamped onto her shoulder like a vice.
She screamed loudly.
I spun her around with incredible force.
Her expensive designer handbag hit the wall and spilled onto the floor.
Lipstick, a gold compact, and a heavy set of keys scattered across the polished hardwood.
I did not care about the mess at all.
I only cared about where she was trying to go in such a panic.
My mother rushed up behind us with a terrified expression.
She demanded that I let go of her daughter immediately.
I completely ignored her desperate commands.
I looked at the hallway leading to my private home office.
That was the only room in this specific direction.
I dragged Vanessa toward the heavy oak door.
She fought me fiercely the entire way down the hall.
Grace stumbled behind us, her breathing shallow and incredibly weak.
I pushed the heavy office door open.
The room was completely dark except for a glowing computer monitor on my large desk.
I had never left a computer in this room before I left the country.
I pushed Vanessa into a leather chair and walked directly over to the screen.
A live surveillance grid stared back at me in high definition.
There were twelve different camera angles monitoring my entire house.
The kitchen.
The living room.
The basement.
Even the master bathroom had a hidden camera installed.
My blood boiled with an unimaginable fury.
They had been watching Grace every single minute of every single day.
I reached for the mouse to see the archived video footage.
Vanessa lunged forward desperately to stop me.
I shoved her back into the chair without saying a single word.
I clicked on a folder labeled with yesterday's exact date.
The high-resolution video started playing instantly.
It showed my mother slapping Grace viciously across the face in the kitchen.
Grace fell heavily to the tiled floor in the video.
My mother kicked her repeatedly while she was down.
I felt a murderous, uncontrollable rage building deep inside my chest.
I turned around slowly to face my mother and sister.
I told them they were both going to spend the rest of their lives in prison.
My mother just laughed in my face.
It was a cold, chilling, and utterly soulless sound.
She told me I was not going to call the police at all.
I asked her why she was so incredibly confident about that.
She slowly pointed a manicured finger at the computer screen.
I looked back at the glowing monitor.
A brand new window had suddenly popped up on the desktop.
It was a live, encrypted video call from an unknown location.
The masked man on the screen was holding a silver gun to the head of a little girl.
I stopped breathing completely.
The little girl had bright green eyes.
She looked exactly like Grace did when we first met.
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My mother smiled wickedly at my horrified reaction.
She told me to say hello to the beautiful daughter I never knew I had.
