Chapter 12 - The Second Secret
Serena ordered Lily to place Oliver in the armchair.
Lily refused.
Mercer entered the room behind them.
He was breathing heavily.
“We don’t have time.”
Serena glared at him.
“Search the nursery.”
“I already did.”
“Search again.”
Mercer disappeared through the hidden passage.
Lily watched Serena.
“You killed Claire.”
Serena’s eyes hardened.
“I didn’t intend to.”
“That makes it better?”
“She destroyed Elena.”
“Claire didn’t run the trial.”
“She protected the people who did.”
“No.”
Lily stepped closer.
“She exposed them.”
For the first time, Serena’s confidence flickered.
Lily continued.
“Claire was trying to make the truth public.”
“She was too late.”
“You knew that.”
Serena looked away.
Lily understood.
“That’s why you killed her.”
“Stop saying that.”
“You found out she was going to expose Mercer.”
Serena snapped.
“She was going to destroy him.”
“He destroyed himself.”
Serena slapped Lily.
Oliver screamed.
Lily immediately turned toward him.
Serena watched.
Something bitter appeared on her face.
“He loves you.”
Lily looked back.
“He trusts me.”
“He should have trusted me.”
“He was afraid of you.”
Serena’s voice became almost childish.
“I was going to be his mother.”
Lily stared at her.
“You never wanted to be his mother.”
Serena looked furious.
“You wanted his inheritance.”
Serena raised the knife.
Then a noise echoed from the passage.
Mercer returned carrying a blue wooden music box.
Lily recognized it.
Claire had kept it inside Oliver’s closet.
Mercer placed it on the table.
“It has a false bottom.”
Serena opened it.
Inside was a sealed envelope.
Her hands shook.
She ripped it open.
A small memory card fell onto the table.
Serena laughed.
“There you are.”
She inserted it into her phone using an adapter.
A video appeared.
Claire sat inside the nursery.
She looked tired.
But calm.
She spoke directly into the camera.
“My name is Claire Blackwood.”
Serena’s smile vanished.
“If this recording is being watched, I may already be dead.”
Mercer stepped backward.
Claire continued.
“Dr. Adrian Mercer falsified trial data.”
Mercer whispered.
“Turn it off.”
“Serena Cross helped him hide the results.”
Serena’s face went white.
“And Richard Vale authorized payments to keep patients silent.”
Then Claire said something no one expected.
“But none of them created the drug.”
Serena stopped breathing.
“The formula came from a private research company secretly controlled by my husband’s late father.”
Victor’s father.
Lily stared at the screen.
Claire continued.
“The Blackwood family scandal began decades before Victor knew anything about it.”
A sound came from downstairs.
The front door crashed open.
Victor’s voice echoed through the mansion.
“LILY!”
Serena grabbed the memory card.
May you like
Mercer ran.
And Lily knew the final confrontation had begun.
