POV LEO
The Fernandez mansion was a ghost town. The kind of quiet that makes your ears ring.
I knew Riven's rage had burned out, leaving him hollow and still in the dark gym. Elijah was a statue in his office, a full glass of whiskey untouched in his hand, his eyes seeing nothing but the ghost of a little girl being carried away.
And in my high-tech room, I was the only one still working. My screens were full of code and maps. My brothers were falling apart, but my brain? My brain was running a million miles an hour.
Sofia. She was the key. Her digital life was locked up tight. But everyone leaves a trail.
I found it. A small cabin way out in the woods. Paid for with cash. No internet. The perfect place to hide something.
I didn't tell anyone. I just stood up, grabbed my keys, and walked out.
An hour later, my black sedan rolled to a stop a mile from the coordinates. I walked the rest of the way, the cold night air biting through my sweater. The cabin was exactly as I'd imagined: small, dark, and forgotten.
The front door was unlocked. I pushed the door. It stuck, then gave with a groan. I was lean, all angles and wiry strength, but not built for brute force. I squeezed through the gap, my expensive sweater catching on a splintered piece of wood.
"Ah, f**k," I hissed, a rare curse escaping my lips as the fabric tore and a sharp line of red bloomed on my forearm. I stared at the scratch. Risk of bacterial infection from untreated wood: 4%. Annoyance factor: 100%.
The inside was a tomb. Dust covered every surface, floating in the moonlight like tiny ghosts. The air was thick with the smell of mildew and old wood. My nose twitched violently. Allergen levels: critical. This is going to be unpleasant.
My eyes scanned the single room. A dusty couch, a rickety table, and... there. Not placed neatly, but half-shoved under the couch, like someone had tried to hide it in a panic. A simple, green notebook.
I knelt and pulled it out. The cover was stained with something dark and flaky. High probability of organic origin. Blood.
I didn't bother finding a clean spot. I stood with my back against the wall, my body tense, and opened the book.
My mother's handwriting stared back at me, but it was wrong. It wasn't her graceful, looping script. It was jagged. Desperate. The writing of a trapped animal.
Entry 1:
The test is positive. A girl. Ricardo is ecstatic. He calls her his "perfect heir," his "crown jewel." I felt sick. This baby isn't a gift. She's a hostage. He will mold her into another monster, just like he did with my boys.
My breath caught in my throat. I could hear her voice, the fear in it.
Entry 2:
I told Ricardo I wanted to leave. To take the boys and the baby and just disappear. He laughed. A cold, ugly sound. He said Elijah would never abandon his birthright. He said Riven would break the bones of anyone who tried to take me. He's right. I've lost them. My sweet boys are already his soldiers.
A single, hot tear escaped my eye and fell onto the page. It landed with a soft plip, smudging the frantic ink. I didn't wipe it away.
*Entry 3 - October 12th:*
The plan is set. It uses Ricardo's own arrogance against him. He believes I am broken, compliant. He's stopped watching me as closely.
Every Tuesday, I go to St. Magdalene's Cathedral to light a candle and pray. It's the one outing he allows without a full security detail—just one driver who waits outside. He thinks it's a sign of my weakness, my need for divine forgiveness in this life. He doesn't know it's where I met Flora all those years ago.
The plan is set for a Tuesday, two weeks after I am cleared to leave the house post-birth. I will have the baby with me, as I always do.
There is a side door in the confessional, a forgotten passage from the church's ancient history that leads down into the catacombs and out through a crypt in the adjacent cemetery. A priest who is deeply indebted to Flora's family knows of it. He will be waiting.
I will walk in with the baby. I will leave my phone, my jewelry, everything in the pew. We will disappear into the confessional and through that door. The driver will wait for hours, thinking I am lost in prayer.
Flora will be waiting in a nondescript van on the other side of the cemetery. From there, it's a straight drive to a container ship at the dock, scheduled to depart that evening.
We will be sealed inside a specially prepared container—air, water, food, a bed. It will be hell for 12 days, but it will take us to a country where Ricardo's reach is short.
He'll search for a body or a kidnapping. He'll never think to look in a shipping container. His pride would never allow him to imagine me there.
I'm not leaving my sons. He already took them. I'm saving the one child I still can.
Final Entry:
Flora is dead. Car accident. No. No. No.
He knows. He knows everything.
He sat across from me at dinner tonight. Smiling. Watching me. Waiting for me to flinch, to cry, to break. I didn't. I can't give him the satisfaction.
The escape plan is ash. The hidden door, the ship, the new life—all gone. He's closed every exit.
A sharp pain—God—the baby is coming now. Too early. He's done something. He's—
The writing ended in a jagged scrawl, the pen dragged across the page.
I stood frozen, the notebook trembling in my hands. The truth was a storm of questions. What did he know? What did he do? The diary pointed a shaking finger at my father, but the full picture was still hidden in shadow.
But then, a single clear thought cut through the chaos.
How did Sofia get this?
The final entry was pure, unmediated panic. It described no time to hide this book, no handoff to a confidant. It ended in a medical emergency.
The probability of this diary making a secure journey from my mother's hands to this cabin, and then to Sofia, was statistically insignificant.
Unless...
Unless its discovery was not an accident, but an arrangement.
VROOM!
The sound of a car engine ripped through the silence. Headlights cut through the trees, getting brighter.
Sofia. She was back.
My brain snapped into survival mode. I shoved the green notebook into the waistband of my pants, tucking it under my sweater. The front door knob began to turn.
I moved like a shadow, slipping into the small back room. There was one window, grimy and painted shut. No time for finesse. I slammed the heel of my hand against the rotten wood frame. Once. Twice. CRACK.
It gave. I squeezed through the narrow opening, splinters tearing at my sweater and scraping my skin. The dust and mold from the window sill went straight up my nose.
AAAA-CHOOO!
The sneeze was explosive, unstoppable. I dropped to the ground outside as I heard Sofia's sharp voice from inside the cabin.
"Hello? Who's there?"
I didn't wait. I scrambled on my hands and knees, cold mud soaking through my pants, and dove into the thick, dark cover of the forest. My heart was a drum in my ears. I was breathing in ragged gasps, my allergies going crazy.
I pressed a finger to my earpiece, my voice a dusty, panicked whisper.
"Viktor! Now! I'm at the coordinates! I need extraction, now!"
I huddled behind a large tree, the green notebook digging into my skin like a secret. I had the clues, but not the answer.
I had my mother's fear, but not my father's crime. The war for Juliet had just become a hunt for the truth.