Chapter 3 - Five Minutes to Escape
“Evacuate the mansion!” Damian shouted.
The guards moved instantly.
One dragged Celeste toward the stairs while the other collected as many files as he could carry. Mrs. Wren grabbed the recorder and several hard drives.
Damian took the folders marked with Elara’s and his father’s names.
Smoke began pouring from vents in the ceiling.
This was not a normal fire alarm.
The hidden apartment had been designed to destroy itself.
When they reached the main floor, flames were already spreading through the west-wing walls.
Servants ran toward the front entrance.
Elara stood near the library doors, surrounded by smoke.
The moment she saw the fire, she screamed.
Her body went rigid.
“No,” she whispered. “Not again.”
Damian rushed toward her.
“Elara, we have to leave.”
She looked past him, seeing something from another time.
“They burned the clinic.”
“What clinic?”
“They said everyone inside was dead.”
A burning beam crashed behind them.
Damian lifted her into his arms.
Elara fought him at first, striking his chest in terror.
“It’s me,” he said. “Damian. I’m taking you outside.”
His name reached her.
She stopped struggling.
He carried her through the entrance as the household evacuated into the rain.
Fire engines were already racing toward the estate, alerted by Robert’s security team.
Damian placed Elara inside an armored vehicle and wrapped blankets around her.
She clutched his sleeve.
“Don’t leave.”
The plea tore through him.
“I’m staying.”
Police arrived moments later, followed by Damian’s attorney, Marcus Hale, and a team of private investigators.
Celeste was handcuffed beside a patrol car.
Even then, she attempted to regain control.
“Damian, listen to me. Your mother will destroy you if you expose this. Hawthorne Global will collapse. Thousands of employees will lose their jobs.”
Damian walked toward her.
“My wife lost three years of her life.”
“You think Elara is innocent?” Celeste snapped. “Ask her why she was investigating your father’s death. Ask her why she copied confidential files from your office.”
Damian’s expression remained cold.
“She can explain when she feels safe.”
Celeste laughed.
“She’ll never feel safe again.”
Damian stepped closer.
“You should pray that isn’t true.”
The police placed Celeste inside a vehicle.
Meanwhile, firefighters battled the blaze.
The fire destroyed the west wing, but the stone underground rooms survived. Investigators recovered damaged records, medication containers, surveillance equipment, and blood samples.
A doctor examined Elara inside an ambulance.
She was severely malnourished. Several ribs had healed incorrectly. Her blood contained traces of long-term sedatives.
But she was alive.
Damian sat beside her while rain struck the ambulance roof.
“Do you remember what happened the day you disappeared?” he asked gently.
Elara watched the doctor wrap her injured hand.
“Pieces.”
“You don’t have to tell me.”
“I want to.”
She looked at Damian.
“I found documents in your father’s old study. Shipping records, private clinics, payments to officials. Your mother was moving company money into secret accounts.”
Damian listened silently.
“I thought Celeste was helping me gather evidence,” Elara continued. “She told me to meet a journalist in Paris. But when I arrived at the train station, a driver was waiting.”
Her breathing quickened.
“He said you had sent him.”
Damian’s eyes filled with pain.
“I never did.”
“I know that now.”
“What happened next?”
“They injected me. I woke up in a clinic surrounded by people who called me Mara. They told me Elara Hawthorne had died in an accident. Whenever I said my real name, they punished me.”
Damian looked away, struggling to contain his rage.
“After the clinic burned, they moved me here. Your mother said hiding me inside your home was safer because no one would search here.”
“How long have you been in the mansion?”
“Eight months.”
Damian closed his eyes.
Eight months.
He had slept beneath the same roof.
He had passed servants in hallways.
He had attended dinners hosted by Celeste.
And his wife had been imprisoned below him.
“Why didn’t I see you?”
“They kept me in the west wing during the day. At night, I cleaned rooms after you left. Celeste said if you saw me, she would tell everyone I was an intruder.”
Elara’s fingers tightened around the blanket.
“She showed me videos of you with her. She said you were engaged.”
“We were never together.”
“She wore my necklace.”
Damian remembered the sapphire pendant Celeste had worn at a charity gala.
She had claimed it was purchased in Vienna.
It had belonged to Elara’s grandmother.
“I should have recognized it.”
“They made certain you wouldn’t.”
Damian reached toward her, then stopped before touching her hand.
“Elara, I failed you.”
She stared at him.
“You believed I was gone.”
“I should have found you.”
“You did.”
Her answer was so soft that he nearly broke.
Before he could reply, Marcus approached the ambulance.
“We found something in Celeste’s vehicle,” the attorney said.
He handed Damian a small envelope.
Inside was a plane ticket issued under Eleanor Hawthorne’s false identity.
The flight departed in four hours from a private airfield.
Destination: Iceland.
There was also a photograph.
It showed Eleanor standing beside a silver-haired man outside a remote house.
Damian recognized his father immediately.
On the back was a handwritten message.
COME ALONE, OR HE DIES FOR REAL THIS TIME.
Elara looked at the photograph.
“She wants you to follow.”
Damian nodded.
“Yes.”
“It’s a trap.”
“Yes.”
“What will you do?”
May you like
Damian put the photograph inside his coat.
“I’m going to let my mother believe I’m still the son she can control.”
