Chapter 3 - The Daughter They Tried to Erase"...Again?"
The word barely escaped Daniel's lips.
It echoed through the underground chamber like a gunshot.
Victoria didn't blink.
She simply looked at him with the same cold expression she had worn while forcing the amber liquid down Sophia's throat.
Daniel searched her face for even the smallest trace of remorse.
He found none.
Only calculation.
Only certainty.
Only a woman who believed she could still control the story.
Emma slowly stepped closer to Sophia, shielding her with her own body.
Victoria noticed immediately.
"Move away from her."
Emma didn't.
"I'm not leaving her alone with you."
Victoria gave a faint smile.
"You think you're protecting her."
"I know I am."
"No."
Victoria's voice remained perfectly calm.
"You're simply delaying the inevitable."
Daniel finally found his voice.
"What did you mean..."
He swallowed.
"...by 'again'?"
The room became impossibly quiet.
Sophia squeezed her eyes shut.
Emma looked from Daniel to Victoria.
Neither woman answered.
Daniel took another step toward his mother.
"I asked you a question."
Victoria folded her hands behind her back.
"It means exactly what you think it means."
His heart pounded harder.
"There was someone before Sophia."
Victoria said nothing.
Daniel looked toward Sophia.
She began shaking her head.
"No..."
Her whisper was barely audible.
"Don't."
Daniel knelt beside her.
"Tell me."
Fresh tears rolled down her cheeks.
"They'll kill me."
"No one is touching you."
She looked directly into his eyes.
"You still don't know who your mother is."
Daniel frowned.
"What?"
Victoria's face hardened.
"Enough."
But Sophia had reached a breaking point.
She couldn't carry the secret anymore.
"The woman who raised you..."
She looked toward Victoria.
"...isn't the woman who gave birth to you."
The sentence stole every ounce of air from the room.
Daniel stared.
His mind refused to process the words.
"What are you talking about?"
Emma looked equally stunned.
Victoria laughed.
A slow...
Mocking laugh.
"You've drugged yourself into hallucinations now?"
Sophia ignored her.
"Your real mother..."
Her voice trembled.
"...tried to expose everything."
Daniel felt the ground disappear beneath him.
"My mother died when I was seven."
"That's what they told you."
"They?"
Sophia slowly nodded.
"The board."
"The lawyers."
"The doctors."
"...Victoria."
Daniel looked back at his mother.
She remained perfectly still.
Too still.
As though she had expected this moment for years.
"I remember her."
Sophia whispered.
"I was only five."
"She used to hide me in the vineyard."
Daniel couldn't breathe.
"Stop."
"She knew Victoria wanted control of the company."
"Stop!"
"She found the secret room."
Victoria's eyes narrowed.
"Enough."
Sophia kept going.
"She found the ledgers."
"The fake inheritance documents."
"The illegal medical files."
"The poison formulas."
Daniel slowly turned.
"The poison..."
Sophia looked at the broken crystal on the floor.
"That wasn't meant to kill me."
Victoria smiled.
"Finally."
"She's telling part of the truth."
Emma frowned.
"What?"
Victoria picked up one of the small chemical bottles from the desk.
"It doesn't kill."
She held it toward the light.
"It erases."
Daniel stared at the amber liquid.
"What does that mean?"
Victoria rolled the bottle between her fingers.
"It destroys memory."
Emma's eyes widened.
"No..."
"For decades," Victoria continued calmly, "our family has relied on loyalty."
She smiled.
"But loyalty is unreliable."
"So..."
She gently tapped the glass vial.
"...we created something better."
Daniel's stomach turned.
"You drug people."
"We preserve the family."
"You erase memories."
"We remove dangerous ones."
Emma whispered,
"My God..."
Victoria looked almost offended.
"Do you really think billion-dollar empires survive on honesty?"
Daniel's hands curled into fists.
"You've been poisoning people."
"I've been protecting everything your grandfather built."
"My grandfather would never—"
Victoria interrupted him.
"Your grandfather financed the research."
Silence.
Absolute silence.
Daniel couldn't believe what he was hearing.
"No."
"He called it Legacy Serum."
Emma looked horrified.
Victoria continued as though discussing ordinary business.
"It doesn't erase an entire life."
"Only selected memories."
"The inconvenient ones."
Sophia closed her eyes.
"They gave it to me..."
"Every time I asked about your mother."
Daniel's head snapped toward her.
"What?"
"They kept saying I was confused."
"They said I imagined things."
"They made me drink it..."
"...again..."
"...and again..."
"...and again."
Daniel suddenly remembered.
A memory.
Small.
Forgotten.
His mother crying.
Doctors standing outside a bedroom.
Victoria holding a glass.
His mother refusing to drink.
Then...
Nothing.
The memory ended.
Just...
Blank.
His breathing became uneven.
He pressed both hands against his temples.
"No..."
More fragments surfaced.
His mother's voice.
"Daniel... if anything happens to me..."
Blank.
Another memory.
A locked cellar.
His grandfather shouting.
Blank.
Another.
Someone screaming underground.
Blank.
Daniel staggered backward.
Emma caught him before he fell.
"Daniel!"
He looked at Victoria with absolute horror.
"You..."
His voice shook violently.
"You did this to me."
Victoria didn't deny it.
Instead...
She smiled sadly.
"I gave you peace."
Daniel's eyes filled with tears.
"You stole my life."
Victoria tilted her head.
"No."
"I gave you the only version you were strong enough to survive."
Sophia suddenly cried out.
"Daniel..."
He turned.
She pointed toward one of the ancient ledgers still lying open on the floor.
"There..."
He followed her trembling finger.
Between two faded pages...
A yellowed photograph had slipped free.
A young woman stood smiling in a vineyard.
She held the hands of two children.
One was Sophia.
The other...
Was Daniel.
And standing behind them...
Was a woman Daniel had been told he had imagined his entire life.
His real mother.
Alive.
Smiling.
Taken only...
Eight years ago.
Not twenty-five.
Not before her "death."
Eight years.
Daniel's entire world shattered.
If the photograph was real...
Then only one impossible question remained.
May you like
If his mother hadn't died...
Where was she now?
