Chapter 3 - The Broken Archive
The domestic quarters were located in the oldest wing of the Hawthorne estate—a subterranean-adjacent corridor of stone and brick that predated the modern glass-and-steel architecture of the main house.
The air down here smelled faintly of old parchment, damp earth, and lemon wax.
Ethan moved quietly down the hallway, his rubber-soled shoes making no sound against the flagstone floor. Most of the staff rooms were dark, their occupants fast asleep after eighteen-hour shifts preparing for the gala.
Only one door at the very end of the corridor showed a thin sliver of warm yellow light leaking out from beneath the crack.
Room 114. Elena’s quarters.
Ethan raised his hand to knock, but stopped when he heard a muffled sound coming from inside the room.
It wasn't talking. It was the sound of someone frantically tearing through paper, followed by a soft, choked sob.
Without hesitating, Ethan pushed the heavy wooden door open. It wasn't locked.
The room was sparse—a narrow iron cot, a small wooden desk, and a metal filing cabinet. But the floor was littered with torn documents, photographs, and medical files that had been ripped from the cabinet drawers.
Elena stood by the small desk, her back to the door, clutching a thick manila folder against her chest. She wore a simple gray cotton nightshirt, her dark hair falling in loose waves over her shoulders.
As the floorboards creaked beneath Ethan’s boots, she whipped around, her eyes wide with absolute, primal terror.
And in that split second, seeing her face under the harsh desk lamp, Ethan felt the breath leave his lungs.
The bone structure, the dark, intense eyes, the sharp slope of the jawline—she didn't just look like a random maid.
She looked hauntingly, unmistakably like Emily.
“You,” Ethan breathed, taking a half-step into the room. “Who are you?”
Elena pressed herself back against the metal filing cabinet, clutching the folder tighter as if it were her only shield against the world.
“Mr. Hawthorne... I can explain,” she whispered, her voice cracking with emotion. Her accent was faint, carrying the cadence of a coastal town three states away—the exact same coastal town where Emily had grown up before moving to Chicago.
“Explain what?” Ethan demanded, stepping closer, his eyes darting down to the scattered papers on the floor. He bent down, picking up a photograph lying near his boot.
It was a picture of Emily. But it wasn't a wedding photo or a society portrait. It was an old Polaroid taken in a sterile, institutional-looking room, showing Emily holding a newborn infant wrapped in a blue blanket—while another woman, younger, with tear-stained cheeks, stood beside her holding a second identical blanket.
Ethan’s hands began to shake violently.
“What is this?” he whispered, looking up at Elena. “Emily didn't have a sister. She was an only child. Her parents died in a car crash before we even met.”
“Emily wasn't an only child,” Elena said, her voice dropping to a trembling, broken whisper as a tear finally tracked down her cheek. “And she didn't die from a postpartum hemorrhage two years ago, Ethan.”
The room seemed to spin on its axis, the stone walls closing in until Ethan could no longer hear the hum of the estate.
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“What... what did you say?”
“Emily didn't die,” Elena repeated, looking him dead in the eye. “Claire made sure everyone believed she died. Because the woman living in this house—the woman you are about to marry—needed an empty bed, a silenced witness, and a stolen life.”
