Chapter 51 Clara's Letter
Brittany’s POV
The drive back to the mansion felt like a blur of gray buildings and flashing streetlights, my hand never leaving the pocket of my coat where the envelope rested. Once we passed the heavy iron gates, I didn't wait for David to help me out of the car. I headed straight for the studio, the one place where the air didn't feel like it was saturated with Blackwell lies. I needed to open it, but the thought of facing my mother's final words alone made my stomach twist into a tight knot.
"David, find Sophia," I said, pausing at the base of the stairs. "Ask her to meet me in the studio. Tell her I won't open it without her."
He looked at me with a mix of concern and something like relief. "I'll bring her right away. Do you want me to stay?"
"No," I said, shaking my head. "I need someone who actually knew her. Someone who saw her breathe and heard her laugh. I need Sophia."
Ten minutes later, the door to the studio creaked open. Sophia walked in, leaning heavily on her cane, her eyes landing on the cream colored envelope sitting on the center of my cutting table. She looked older tonight, the shadows of the room deepening the lines on her face. She didn't say a word as she sank into the velvet armchair I had pulled out for her.
"You found it," she whispered, her voice trembling.
"In the basement of the old studio," I said, my fingers hovering over the wax seal. "In a box marked with her name."
"She was always hiding things," Sophia said, a ghost of a smile touching her lips. "She knew that house was a shark tank, even back then. She used to say that paper was the only thing that could keep a secret."
I took a deep breath, the scent of lavender and old paper filling my senses, and finally broke the seal. The wax crumbled under my touch, falling like red dust onto the white tabletop. I pulled out two pages covered in that elegant, slanted script. The date at the top made my heart stop. Three days before the fire.
"She knew," I said, my voice cracking. "She wrote this three days before it happened."
"Read it, Brittany," Sophia urged softly. "Let her speak."
I started to read, my eyes stinging as the words began to flow. My dearest Brittany and Bianca, the letter began. I stopped for a second, swallowing the lump in my throat. Seeing our names together, written with the same steady pressure of the pen, felt like a physical weight being lifted. She hadn't chosen. In her heart, at the very end, she was still holding both of us.
"She loves us both," I whispered, looking up at Sophia. "She talks about the work and the designs. She says the collection belongs to both of us when we are old enough to claim it. She says we are the heirs to the Redman name, not the Blackwell shadow."
"She fought so hard to keep you both out of Harrison's reach," Sophia said, her eyes staring at a point far beyond the walls of the room. "She was planning to take you both to Milan the night after the gala. She had the tickets hidden in her vanity."
I turned to the second page, my pulse quickening as the tone of the letter shifted. The handwriting became more hurried, the ink darker where she had pressed down with urgency.
If they come for me before I can reach the airport, you must know where the truth is kept, the letter continued. Harrison thinks he has destroyed the trail, but he only looks where he is told to look. I have hidden the original signed copy of the Moretti contract, the one bearing my sole signature and the official seal of the House of Moretti. It is the only document that proves the deal was mine before he rebranded it.
"She kept the original?" I asked, looking at Sophia in shock. "I thought everything burned."
"She told me once that she had a safety net," Sophia muttered, leaning forward in her chair. "But she never told me where. She was too afraid I would be forced to tell Harrison."
I looked back down at the page, my eyes scanning the specific instructions my mother had left behind. She described the location with a builder’s precision, noting the measurements and the materials of the walls.
"Sophia," I said, my voice rising as the realization hit me. "She didn't hide it in the old studio. She brought it here. She hid it inside this manor."
"Inside the house?" Sophia asked, her hand tightening on her cane. "But Harrison had this place searched a thousand times after the fire. He went through every floor, every vent."
"Not every floor," I said, reading the lines again. "She says it’s below the east foundation. In a room beneath the archives. She describes a space that isn't on any of the blueprints David showed me. A room I have never been told exists."
I stood up, the letter clutched in my hand, and walked over to the corner of the room where the hidden panel behind the wardrobe was located. I knew that part of the house. It was the oldest wing, the part where the shadows seemed to linger even in the middle of the day.
"It’s in the passages," I said, turning back to Sophia. "She describes a descent through the service walls, past the boiler rooms, into a sub-level that was sealed off during the renovations in the nineties. She says there is a locked iron chest bolted to the bedrock."
"That part of the house is dangerous, Brittany," Sophia warned, her face pale. "The foundations are unstable down there. That's why they sealed it."
"Leo has been living in those walls for weeks," I reminded her. "He knows the map of the interior better than the architects. If there is a room below the east foundation, he will know how to find the entrance."
I felt a surge of adrenaline, a sharp contrast to the heavy grief I had been carrying all day. My mother had laid a path through the darkness, a trail of breadcrumbs that had waited thirty years for me to be brave enough to follow. She had known the danger was closing in, and she had used her final moments to ensure her daughters had a weapon to fight back with.
I walked to the wall and knocked three times. Deliberate. Sharp. The sound echoed through the studio, and for a long moment, there was nothing but silence. Then, a faint scraping sound came from behind the wood. The panel slid open a few inches, and Leo’s tired, wired eyes peered out at me.
"You look like you saw a ghost," Leo whispered, his gaze jumping between me and Sophia.
"I found the map, Leo," I said, holding up the letter. "My mother left a key to a room we haven't found yet. It's below the east foundation."
Leo’s eyebrows shot up, and he pulled the panel open wider. "Below the east wing? That's the dead zone. The signals always drop out when I get close to the floorboards down there. I thought it was just thick concrete."
"It's not just concrete," I said, stepping toward the opening. "It's a vault. And everything we need to destroy Harrison Blackwell is sitting inside it."
I looked back at Sophia one last time. She looked at me with a mixture of pride and terror, her hand trembling as she waved me toward the dark passage. I didn't hesitate. I stepped into the narrow, dusty space behind the walls, the scent of old wood and copper rising to meet me. This was the house that had tried to swallow my family whole, but tonight, I was going into its stomach to take back what belonged to us.
The location Clara describes is inside the Blackwell Manor. In a room Brittany has never been told exists, in a part of the house below the east foundation, accessible only through the passage in the walls that Leo has been living in for weeks.