Chapter 8 - My Father Sent Men to Take Me Alive, but the Real Shock Was Discovering He Had Kept a Room Filled With Photographs of Me and ChiaraWe reached a safehouse.
Chiara showed me everything she had collected.
Photographs.
Documents.
Recordings.
Maps.
One image made me stop.
Me and Chiara.
Before we met.
How?
The photograph had been taken outside my university.
My father had been watching me.
Another showed Chiara leaving a hospital.
Another showed Valentina.
Another showed Mia.
I stared.
"Why Mia?"
"Because she found the tape."
Chiara shook her head.
"No."
She looked at Mia.
"Because she has seen things adults haven't."
Mia smiled.
She didn't understand.
Then she pointed at one photograph.
"The bad room."
I turned.
"What bad room?"
"That one."
She pointed to a building.
I recognized it.
The old Russo family warehouse.
It had been closed for years.
Chiara's expression changed.
"That's where your father keeps the children."
We went there that night.
Inside, we found cages.
Beds.
Medical equipment.
But no children.
Only recordings.
The place had been evacuated.
They knew we were coming.
A speaker activated.
My father's voice.
"Dante."
I froze.
"You were always my favorite."
I stared at the ceiling.
"You were meant to inherit everything."
"I don't want it."
"That's the problem."
He said he needed me.
The genetic marker.
The blood.
The family name.
He wanted to use my body to complete the research.
I realized then that the children weren't the final target.
They were proof of concept.
I was the final experiment.
Chiara grabbed my hand.
"We need to leave."
The building began to shake.
Bombs.
We ran.
The warehouse exploded behind us.
My father had tried to kill all of us.
But he failed.
Because Mia had found another hidden box.
Inside was a key.
A real one.
Metal.
Old.
Engraved with my mother's initials.
She pointed toward the river.
"Bad room."
We followed.
Under an abandoned chapel was another facility.
Inside were the children.
Alive.
May you like
And at the center—
my father.
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