Maya's POV
The first thing Maya heard before she even opened her eyes was her own heartbeat.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Fast. Panicked. Alive.
She grabbed onto that word like a rope. Alive. Whatever Hartley had put in that needle, she was still breathing. Still here. Her body felt heavy, like someone had filled her bones with wet sand, but her brain was starting to fight its way back.
She didn't open her eyes yet.
She'd learned that trick from one of Elijah's research books she'd read during her first week at Frost Manor. When you wake up in a dangerous place, listen first. Never give away that you're awake. She hadn't understood why she'd read that book so carefully. Maybe some part of her had known she'd need it.
Voices nearby. Two of them.
"She's been out for six hours." A man's voice. Unfamiliar.
"She should be awake by now." That was Hartley. Cold and flat like a math problem. "The dose wasn't meant to knock her out that long."
"Maybe she's smaller than you thought."
"Or maybe," Hartley said slowly, "she's pretending."
Maya's blood went ice cold.
Don't move. Don't breathe differently. Don't
Something slammed down beside her head. Maya screamed, and her eyes flew open before she could stop herself. Hartley stood over her, expressionless, watching her the way a scientist watches an insect under glass.
"There she is," he said softly.
Maya sat up fast and immediately regretted it. The room spun. She was on a cold metal cot in what looked like a basement. Concrete walls. One bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. Her wrists were zip-tied in front of her now, not behind—small mercy, or maybe a trap.
"Where's my sister?" Maya's voice came out raspy and raw. "Where's Lily?"
"Safe." Hartley pulled a metal chair close and sat down, crossing one leg over the other, as if this were a normal meeting. "For now."
"Where's Ezra?"
"Somewhere else. Also safe." He studied her face. "You have your mother's eyes, did you know that? Sarah had the same look when she was angry. That fire. That refusal to just accept things." He paused. "It got her killed."
Maya's hands balled into fists. "You murdered her."
"I made a necessary decision. She saw things she wasn't supposed to see." He said it so easily, like he was talking about the weather. "She was a file clerk, Maya. A nobody. But she memorized account numbers, routing codes, and names. She was going to destroy twenty years of work." He tilted his head. "Your mother was very, very smart. Smarter than she should have been."
"She was a good person," Maya said. Her voice cracked. "She was just trying to do the right thing."
"Yes." Hartley stood. "That's exactly the problem."
He walked to a door Maya hadn't noticed and knocked twice. It opened. One of his men stepped in, holding a tablet, already playing a video.
Maya's own voice filled the room.
Her stomach dropped.
It was the recording she'd made in the panic room, during those terrifying minutes when she'd grabbed Ezra's phone to document everything she remembered. Her voice shook on the recording as she described the man with the snake tattoo, the night her mother died, everything she'd seen as a seven-year-old child hiding behind a curtain.
"Your little insurance policy," Hartley said, turning off the tablet. "We found it uploaded to three servers. We've already scrubbed it from two." He looked at her. "The third one has a two-factor password we can't crack. You're going to give it to us."
"I don't know the password."
"You created the account."
"Ezra did it. I just watched."
Hartley crouched down so they were eye level. Up close, he looked older than he did on television. Tired in a way that expensive suits couldn't hide. "Maya. I want you to hear me carefully. I have your sister in a room upstairs. I have Ezra in a room down the hall. I have enough power to make both of them disappear tonight in ways no one will ever question." His voice was very quiet. "Or I can let them go. I can wipe the last two months clean, give you enough money to start over somewhere warm, and this whole thing ends. Everyone lives."
Maya stared at him. "You're offering me a deal."
"I'm trying to avoid more mess." He stood up. "I don't enjoy this. I'm not a monster."
"You killed my mother in front of me," Maya said flatly. "I was seven years old."
Something flickered in Hartley's face. Something that almost looked like guilt. Then it was gone.
"The password," he said. "You have ten minutes to decide."
He walked out. The door locked behind him.
Maya sat very still.
Ten minutes.
She looked around the room. Concrete walls. One lightbulb. Metal cot with a loose bolt on the leg, she could see it from here, slightly raised from the floor. A security camera in the top left corner. A red blinking light meant it was recording.
Wait.
Recording.
Maya's mind started moving fast. Elijah's voice suddenly filled her head like a memory: Every camera in this house connects to a central server. Even if the feed is monitored, the footage gets backed up externally. You can't destroy what's already been sent.
Hartley said he scrubbed two servers. But Elijah's backup system wasn't just three servers. She'd spent two weeks organizing those files. She knew his system better than anyone.
There were seven.
Hartley didn't know about the other four.
Maya stood up slowly, her zip-tied hands in front of her. She walked toward the security camera, placed herself directly underneath it, and looked straight into the lens.
Then she started talking.
She talked fast and clearly. She said Hartley's name. She said the date. She described where she thought she was, the helicopter, the ride, the basement, all of it. She described her mother's murder in as much detail as a now-twenty-six-year-old woman could pull from a seven-year-old's memory. Names. Numbers she'd heard Elijah say. Account information she'd accidentally memorized while organizing files for two weeks.
She talked until her throat hurt.
And then she heard footsteps outside the door.
Three sharp knocks. A pause. Two more.
Maya froze. That wasn't a guard's knock. Guards didn't knock.
The door opened.
Mrs. Winters stood in the doorway.
Maya's mouth fell open. "How"
"Shh." The older woman crossed the room in quick steps and pulled a small knife from her coat pocket, cutting the zip tie with one clean motion. "We have four minutes. Maybe less."
"How did you find me? How are you here?"
Mrs. Winters looked at her steadily. "Because I've been protecting this family for thirty years, child. Long before Elijah and Ezra were born. Long before their father died." She took Maya's hand and pulled her toward the door. "And I'm not done yet."
They slipped into a hallway. Dark. Low ceiling. The smell of damp stone.
"Elijah," Maya whispered. "He's somewhere close; we can't leave him."
"I know where he is."
"Wait." Maya pulled back. "You said Elijah. Not Ezra." She stared at the older woman. "Is Elijah actually"
Mrs. Winters smiled. Just slightly.
"Four minutes," she said again. "I'll explain everything. But we have to move right now."
From somewhere upstairs, an alarm began to wail.
They ran.
And as Maya's feet hit the cold concrete floor, one thought rang through her head louder than the alarm, louder than her heartbeat, louder than everything:
Elijah was alive.
And someone had been lying to her from the very beginning.