Chapter 2: The Secret Room
Chapter 2: The Secret Room
The primary medical wing of the local hospital was completely locked down by Carter security. No press, no distant relatives, and no high-society looky-loos were permitted on the entire fourth floor. Victoria sat tightly by Lucas's bedside, her hand interlocking with his small, scarred fingers as the machines hummed quietly in the background. The deep laceration on his shoulder had required twenty stitches, a cruel reminder of the barbed-wire fence he had climbed to escape his captors weeks earlier.
The heavy oak door opened with a soft click, and William Carter stepped inside, looking older than his seventy years. The absolute authority he carried in the boardroom seemed heavy, weighed down by the realization that his own wealth had placed a target on his grandson's back.
"The police just finished processing the documents Lucas found," William said quietly, pulling up a chair on the opposite side of the bed. He looked down at the sleeping boy, his eyes softening with rare, genuine tears. "It's worse than we thought, Victoria."
"Tell me," Victoria said, her tone flat, devoid of the polite warmth she usually maintained for her father. "I want to know every single thing she did to him."
William opened a sleek leather portfolio, pulling out a set of heavily encrypted bank statements and land deeds. "Sophia didn't just pay a random group to hide him. She used a shell company under the Carter Shipping umbrella to purchase an abandoned farm estate three hundred miles north, in the deep valley forests. She hired a disgraced former nurse and her husband to raise him under a completely fictional identity. They told him his name was 'Leo,' that his real parents had abandoned him on a highway, and that the world outside the property lines was dangerous."
Victoria's breath hitched, a fresh wave of hot anger washing through her veins. "For five years... she sat at my dining table, drank my wine, and watched me cry myself to sleep on his birthday, knowing exactly where he was."
"She was waiting for the five-year legal mark," William explained, his knuckles turning white against his cane. "According to the original terms of my estate trust, if a primary heir is missing for five consecutive years without a trace, they are legally declared deceased for the purposes of asset distribution. The fortune would have automatically rolled over to her son, Julian, next month. She almost pulled it off."
"But she forgot one thing," a quiet, raspy voice interrupted from the pillows.
Victoria quickly turned to see Lucas opening his vast blue eyes. He looked tired, but the hollow, terrified expression he had worn in the ballroom was slowly being replaced by a spark of the fierce intelligence he had inherited from his mother.
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"What did she forget, sweetheart?" Victoria asked, leaning closer to brush a stray lock of hair from his forehead.
"She forgot that you taught me how to read the stars, Mom," Lucas said, a small, triumphant smile playing on his lips. "The nurses at the farm told me we were in a different country, but every winter, I looked out the attic window and saw the exact same constellation you showed me from my bedroom balcony at Carter Manor. I knew I was close to home. I knew you were still looking for me."
