Chương 5
"I don't know."
"You're lying."
She looked up.
"I know there were more messages."
Daniel's expression hardened.
"How?"
"Because Michael told me."
The room became silent.
"When?"
Victoria hesitated.
"Two days before his accident."
Daniel felt a sudden wave of anger.
"You spoke to him two days before he disappeared?"
Victoria closed her eyes.
"Yes."
"And you never told me?"
"I was afraid."
Daniel laughed once, but there was no happiness in it.
"Everyone was afraid."
He looked at the room.
"Everyone was afraid except me."
Victoria looked at him sadly.
"You were the one person who trusted everyone."
Daniel did not respond.
Because that was the part that hurt the most.
He had built his life around loyalty.
He believed love meant believing the people closest to him.
Now he wondered if that belief had made him blind.
Lily looked up at him.
"Daddy."
He looked down.
"Are we still a family?"
The question was simple.
But it carried everything.
Daniel immediately knelt beside her.
"Yes."
He held her hands.
"We are."
"Even if people did bad things?"
Daniel looked at Victoria.
Then back at Lily.
"Families can make mistakes."
He paused.
"But families also tell the truth and try to fix them."
Lily nodded.
She did not fully understand the situation.
But she understood that her father was still there.
And that was enough.
Daniel stood up.
"We need to find everything Michael left."
Victoria looked surprised.
"You believe him?"
"I believe the person who tried to tell me the truth."
Daniel looked at the smartwatch.
"Even if the truth hurts."
He walked toward the study.
The old room had belonged to Richard Carter.
After his death, Daniel rarely entered.
It still looked exactly the same.
The dark wooden shelves.
The leather chair.
The framed photographs.
A lifetime of achievements displayed on the walls.
Daniel opened the door.
Dust covered some of the furniture.
But everything was carefully arranged.
Too carefully.
Victoria followed behind him.
Lily stayed close to her father.
Daniel searched the desk.
Nothing.
He opened drawers.
Nothing.
Then he noticed something unusual.
One drawer was locked.
He touched the handle.
"This wasn't locked before."
Victoria looked nervous.
Daniel turned toward her.
"How do you know?"
She looked away.
"Because I saw your father put something inside."
Daniel stared at her.
"What?"
"A folder."
Daniel found a small key hidden inside the bottom drawer.
His hands tightened around it.
He inserted the key.
The drawer opened slowly.
Inside was an old brown folder.
On the cover was a handwritten name.
Michael Reynolds.
Daniel stopped breathing.
He opened it carefully.
Inside were copies of medical documents.
Hospital records.
Financial transfers.
And a photograph.
Daniel picked up the photograph.
It showed Richard Carter standing outside a hospital entrance.
Beside him was the hospital administrator.
The date was twelve years earlier.
The night Lily was born.
Daniel felt a cold feeling move through him.
His father had been there.
He had known.
Maybe he had known everything.
Victoria covered her mouth.
"I never saw that."
Daniel looked through the documents.
One page caught his attention.
A signature.
Richard Carter.
The document was an agreement.
A payment agreement.
Daniel's hands started shaking.
"What did he do?"
Victoria stepped closer.
She looked at the paper.
Her face changed.
"I don't know."
Daniel continued reading.
The document mentioned a child identity correction.
A confidential settlement.
And a warning.
"All information regarding the incident must remain undisclosed."
Daniel felt sick.
His father had not simply known.
He had arranged the silence.
The smartwatch suddenly vibrated in his hand.
Another message appeared.
"Evidence location confirmed."
Daniel looked at the screen.
A map appeared.
The location was inside the mansion.
Not the study.
Not the office.
A hidden room beneath the house.
Victoria stared at the screen.
"Your father had a private archive room."
Daniel looked at her.
"You knew?"
She shook her head quickly.
"No."
For the first time, Daniel believed her.
Because her fear looked genuine.
He looked toward the floor beneath them.
Somewhere under their home was a room containing answers.
Answers about Michael.
Answers about Lily.
Answers about everything his family had hidden.
Daniel held his daughter's hand.
"We're going downstairs."
Victoria looked at him.
"Daniel, what if we find something worse?"
He looked at the smartwatch.
"We already found something worse."
He looked at Lily.
"The truth."
Together, they left the study.
They walked toward the oldest part of the mansion.
A place Daniel had walked past thousands of times without ever knowing what was beneath it.
And behind a wall that had been untouched for years, a hidden door waited.
A door that had been locked since the night everything changed.
The hidden door stood at the end of a narrow hallway beneath the oldest section of the mansion.
Daniel remembered walking past that wall countless times as a child.
He remembered his father telling him the area was only used for storage.
A place filled with old furniture and forgotten family belongings.
But now the wall looked different.
It looked like a place where someone had buried the truth.
Daniel ran his fingers along the wooden panels.
The smartwatch screen continued glowing in his hand.
A small arrow on the display pointed directly toward the wall.
"Lily, stay close to me," Daniel said softly.
The little girl nodded and held onto his hand.
Victoria stood a few steps behind them.
For the first time since the truth began coming out, she looked completely uncertain.
Daniel searched the wall carefully.
Then he noticed a small metal button hidden beneath a decorative piece of wood.
He pressed it.
A quiet mechanical sound filled the hallway.
The wall slowly moved backward.
Behind it was a narrow staircase leading downward.
Cold air rose from below.
Lily looked into the darkness.
"Was this here the whole time?"
Daniel looked down the stairs.
"Yes."
His voice was filled with disbelief.
"Right underneath us."
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The three of them descended slowly.
The only light came from the smartwatch screen and the small lamps along the hidden staircase.
