Chapter 25 - The Ghost Called IsabellaThe name echoed through the room.
"Isabella."
Nobody reacted.
Except my grandfather.
His face lost every trace of color.
His hands trembled.
For the first time...
The man who had ruled our family with absolute authority looked terrified.
"You..."
He whispered.
"You should never have spoken that name."
Matteo looked at him.
"Too late."
I turned toward my grandfather.
"Who is Isabella?"
He remained silent.
Evelyn answered instead.
"She wasn't your father's enemy."
She paused.
"She was his sister."
The room exploded.
"What?"
Adrian staggered backward.
"My father had a sister?"
Evelyn nodded.
"The Whitmore family erased her from every record."
"Why?"
"Because she refused to obey."
Matteo opened another page in the journal.
Inside...
Was a birth certificate.
Father:
Harold Whitmore.
Mother:
Elizabeth Whitmore.
Children:
Lorenzo.
Isabella.
My grandfather shut his eyes.
"I buried that history."
"No."
Matteo corrected him.
"You buried people."
Another photograph appeared.
This one was newer.
Security-camera footage.
Only three years old.
A woman entering a private airport.
She looked older now.
Grey streaks in her dark hair.
But unmistakably the same woman from the photograph.
Alive.
Adrian stared.
"She's alive?"
"Yes."
"And she's been watching all of us."
I couldn't understand.
"If she ordered my father's death..."
"Why wait twenty years?"
Matteo looked toward the mansion windows.
"Because she wasn't hunting your father."
He turned back to me.
"She was hunting something he stole."
My pulse quickened.
"What?"
Matteo slowly pulled a small silver key from the journal.
It wasn't an ordinary key.
Its head carried the Whitmore crest.
On the back...
One word had been engraved.
Vault Seven.
Nobody spoke.
Until Evelyn whispered...
"Oh God..."
I looked at her.
"What is Vault Seven?"
She stared at the key.
"It isn't a bank vault."
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She swallowed.
"It's where the Whitmore family buried every secret they couldn't afford to leave alive."
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