PART 2

Claire ran through the mansion with the tape recorder in her hand, closely followed by Jason.

In the west wing, he discovered that the recorder wasn't working, but that there was a memory card inside.

Jason saw it.

His courtesy mask disappeared.

“That card belongs to me,” he said.

Claire smashed a wall sconce, plunging the hallway into darkness, and escaped through a hidden panel. The passageway wound behind the walls, revealing secret views of the mansion.

She saw Dr. Vale with Mrs. Lang.

She heard Jason chasing her.

Finally, the hallway opened into Ethan's room.

Claire ran to his side.

"I found it," she whispered. "I have the card."

Ethan had difficulty speaking.

“No… Jason.”

Claire froze.

“I know. That’s fine too.”

Ethan shook his head weakly.

With enormous effort, he wrote a single word on a notepad.

MOTHER.

Claire stared at him.

“Your mother has died.”

Then the bedroom door opened.

Jason came in with Dr. Vale.

Among them was the woman in the portrait.

Ethan's mother.

Alive.

Elegant. Cold. Powerful.

Lady Ashbourne smiled sweetly.

“My poor son.”

Jason was not the owner of Blackwood House.

He was nothing more than her weapon.

Claire hid the card in her fist, but Lady Ashbourne extended her hand.

“The card, Miss Claire.”

Claire lied. “It’s already been copied.”

Lady Ashbourne laughed softly. "Brave enough to cause trouble."

Ethan's gaze shifted towards the fireplace.

Claire followed his gaze and saw a small red light blinking behind a bronze clock.

He realized that the tape recorder had been a decoy.

There was another device.

A transmitter.

She grabbed him just as Lady Ashbourne ordered Jason to stop her.

But before anyone could react, men dressed in dark suits burst into the room.

For a second, Claire thought help had arrived.

Then one of the men bowed to Lady Ashbourne.

“The transmission was intercepted, ma’am.”

Claire's hope faded.

Lady Ashbourne smiled.

"See? That's why mothers worry."

Then Ethan placed something in Claire's palm.

A small silver key.

It bore a single word:

Crypt.

For the first time, fear was reflected on Lady Ashbourne's face.

And far below the mansion, something began to bang from inside the   family crypt  .

Claire used the key and discovered what Ethan had hidden beneath the house: files, recordings, names, payments, and evidence that the Ashbourne empire was built on stolen money, falsified medical reports, and staged accidents.

But the biggest surprise wasn't Jason.

He was Ethan's father.

Nathaniel Ashbourne was supposed to be dead.

It wasn't.

He had been controlling everything from the shadows.

Jason, Dr. Vale, even Lady Ashbourne's silence: everything led to him.

That night, Nathaniel appeared on all the screens in the mansion.

I'm older now, but I'm very much alive.

She smiled at Ethan.

“I came back from the grave before I came back from mine. Dramatic.”

Ethan clung to his cane, barely able to stand.

"What do you want?"

Nathaniel's answer was simple.

“What I built.”

But Vivian Ashbourne, Ethan's grandmother, knew his old hiding place: the glass greenhouse located on the edge of the estate.

Inside they found accounting books, hard drives, passports, and photographs.

A photograph made Claire stop breathing.

His mother.

In a hospital bed.

Nathaniel was standing next to her.

Then the glass shattered.

The men attacked.

Claire and Ethan fled in the rain.

A black SUV crashed into the greenhouse wall.

Nathaniel left smiling, holding Claire's mother's silver medallion.