Chapter 147 Chapter 147

Chapter 147 Chapter 147
Drake’s POV 

The house felt unfamiliar.

Not because I didn’t recognize the furniture or the layout. I did. Every room. Every hallway. Every painting mounted deliberately on the walls.

But something beneath the surface felt disturbed.

Since visiting Chloe in that holding room, my head had not been quiet.

The word bastard had echoed more than it should have. It had struck something inside me like a crack in glass. I couldn’t see through it clearly, but I knew it was there.

Margaret had been unusually attentive since my discharge. Too attentive. She hovered. She redirected conversations. She answered questions before I finished asking them.

It irritated me.

When she wasn’t home that afternoon, I moved.

Not with panic.

With calculation.

I started in my office at home.

The desk drawers were organized, almost aggressively so. Documents stacked neatly. Financial statements. Property records. Insurance files.

Nothing unusual. I opened the cabinet beneath the bookshelf. Empty except for archived contracts. I told myself I was being paranoid. But the feeling in my gut didn’t ease. I walked into the hallway slowly. At the end of it was the locked room. The keypad stared back at me. I stood in front of it for a long moment. I didn’t remember installing it.

That unsettled me.

I pressed my thumb against the pad absently. Four digits..I tried the house security code. Incorrect. I tried Margaret’s birthday.

Incorrect.

Jack’s birthday.

Incorrect.

A faint pressure built behind my eyes as I stared at it. Why would there be a separate locked room in my own house? Margaret had brushed it off when I asked days ago.

“It’s just storage,” she said lightly. “Old files.” Storage didn’t require a separate code.

I leaned my forehead against the door briefly. There was something I was missing. Something important. I stepped back and scanned the hallway walls.

Photographs lined the space. Public events. Galas. Family portraits. One frame caught my attention. It was older. Margaret holding baby Jack. The image looked perfect. Too perfect. I stared at it longer than necessary. Something about it felt staged in a way I couldn’t explain. I moved to the study next.

Opened drawers. Checked cabinets. Nothing out of place. Nothing hidden. Everything looked exactly as it should. But that was the problem. It was too clean. Too curated. My head throbbed again. I walked upstairs.

Jack’s old bedroom still held remnants of his adolescence. Trophies. Framed certificates. Photographs from private schools and corporate internships.

I picked up one of the frames. Jack at eighteen. I studied his features carefully.

His jawline.

His eyes.

His build.

Something didn’t align, but I couldn’t articulate what. I set the frame down. My phone buzzed on the desk behind me. Margaret’s name flashed across the screen.

I let it ring. The silence afterward felt louder than the ringtone. I continued searching.

Closets.

Storage trunks.

Old filing boxes.

Everywhere I looked, I found order.

Not truth. The more I searched, the more the frustration built. I wasn’t looking for a specific object. I was looking for confirmation that I wasn’t losing my mind. Because something was wrong. I felt it in my bones. In the space between my ribs. In the way Margaret avoided certain conversations. In the way Jack reacted when Chloe’s name was mentioned.

Chloe.

The thought of her sent another sharp pulse through my head.

Fragments flickered.

A car.

A notification.

Her name. Documents attached. My chest tightened. I pressed my fingers against my temple. “Think,” I muttered to myself. Why would she accuse Jack so confidently?

Why would she stand in front of me in that hospital room and speak like she had nothing to lose?

She had looked destroyed when I didn’t recognize her.

That wasn’t manipulation. That was grief.

I walked back down the hallway and stopped in front of the locked room again. The keypad blinked back at me silently. What was inside? Why did it feel like the answers were behind that door? I tried combinations again.

Marriage year. Incorrect. House purchase year. Incorrect. My birth year. Incorrect.

The headache intensified. My vision blurred slightly as I leaned against the wall. This shouldn’t be this hard. If the room truly held nothing important, I would remember it.

But I didn’t. I stepped away slowly.

Perhaps the problem wasn’t inside the room. Perhaps the problem was inside me. The accident. The memory loss. The blank spaces where recent months should be. Maybe I was filling them with suspicion because I couldn’t tolerate not knowing. But the instinct refused to quiet.

Margaret returned shortly after. She saw me standing near the hallway and paused.

“What are you doing?” she asked lightly.

“Looking around,” I replied.

“For what?”

I met her gaze. “For something I can’t name yet.” Her smile didn’t reach her eyes.

“You need rest,” she said gently. “The doctors warned about strain.”

“I’m fine,” I answered.

She walked closer, resting a hand on my arm.

“You’re overthinking,” she murmured. “Everything is under control.”

Under control.

That phrase again.

I nodded slowly. But inside, the unease only deepened.

Later that night, after she went to bed, I remained awake in the dark. Staring at the ceiling. Listening to the silence of the house. It felt like a set. Like a place designed to look intact while hiding fractures beneath the surface.

I tried once more to push my memory back.

To force clarity.

But the pain returned instantly, sharp and punishing.

So I stopped.

For now.

I hadn’t found anything. No hidden files. No obvious proof.

Nothing tangible.

But the absence of evidence didn’t bring comfort.

It brought certainty.

There was something buried here. And I hadn’t uncovered it yet. But I would. Because the feeling that something was wrong wasn’t paranoia.

It was instinct.

And I trusted my instincts.

Even when my memory failed me.



The next morning began like any other.

Margaret was at the dining table, her phone pressed to her ear, her tone sharp and irritated. I was halfway down the staircase when I heard the name.

Chloe.

I froze.

“She’s in labor?” Margaret repeated, her voice laced with disbelief rather than concern. “Already?”

There was a pause while the person on the other end spoke.

Margaret rolled her eyes.

“To hell with her,” she said coldly. “If she’s stupid enough to carry drama into her pregnancy, then let her deal with it. Maybe this will finally end.”

My jaw tightened.

“She should have thought about consequences,” Margaret continued. “Frankly, I hope she doesn’t survive it.”

The words hung in the air like poison.