Then, in the middle of a storm, an eight-year-old girl appeared in front of him holding a faded photograph of the woman he had never stopped thinking about.
“Sir… my mother said you’re my father.”
Daniel nearly dropped the photo.
The date written on the back was from exactly nine months before the supposed accident that had killed her.
Before he could ask another question, his fiancée, Victoria, rushed across the marble lobby.
“Daniel, she’s lying. Call security.”
But the little girl’s face changed the second she saw Victoria.
She stepped behind Daniel and whispered:
“That’s her.”
Daniel slowly turned.
“What did you just say?”
The girl’s hands began shaking.
“She comes to the house at night. My mother told me if I ever escaped, I had to find you.”
Daniel’s face went white.
“Your mother is alive?”
The girl nodded.
Then she pointed toward the private elevator behind Victoria.
“She’s downstairs.”
Victoria suddenly grabbed Daniel’s arm.
“Don’t listen to her.”
But Daniel pulled away and ordered hotel security to open the restricted basement level.
Victoria started screaming that he had no right.
That was when Daniel realized something even worse.
The basement wasn’t part of the hotel.
Victoria had rented the entire underground section under another name for almost three years.
Minutes later, security forced open a locked service room.
Inside was a woman sitting on the floor beneath a single light.
Thin. Exhausted. Barely recognizable.
But Daniel knew her immediately.
“Emily?”
She looked up.
And the first words out of her mouth made everyone freeze.
“Daniel… Victoria didn’t try to kill me because of you.”
Daniel stared at her.
“Then why?”
Emily looked directly at Victoria.
“Because she knew the little girl wasn’t your only child.”
Daniel stopped breathing.
Emily reached beneath the blanket beside her.
And from the darkness came the sound of another child crying.
