Chapter 223 The Clown Mask

Chapter 223: Chapter 223 The Clown Mask

?The manor was exceptionally quiet, wrapped in an unbroken hush.

?Veyra pushed open the grand front door and stepped inside the vast foyer. Her footsteps echoed softly off the polished marble floor beneath her shoes. A few passing servants offered polite nods as she walked by, but she did not see them at all. Her mind was entirely elsewhere.

?She hurried down the hallway straight to her bedroom. She pushed the door shut behind her and turned the lock with a sharp click.

?She stood completely still in the middle of the room. Her heart was pounding wildly against her ribs, and her hands were shaking uncontrollably.

?Mrs. Harlow’s unsettling words were still echoing loudly inside her head.

?"Your mother was hiding something."

?She felt a desperate need to uncover the truth. She had to know what it was.

?Without wasting another second, she walked over to the tall closet in the corner.

?She reached up to the top shelf and pulled down a large storage box. It was old and made of plain cardboard. The corners were frayed from years of moving around, and the packing tape sealing the edges had turned a sickly yellow color.

?She had carefully packed and brought this box with her when she finally left Caspian behind. Yet, through all the weeks that followed, she had never once opened it. She had simply never possessed the necessary courage to face what lay inside.

?It held her mother’s remaining belongings. The few precious items her mother had managed to keep, and the few mementos she had never been able to throw away.

?She carried the box over to the bed and set it down gently. She sat down right beside it on the edge of the bed.

?She took in a slow, trembling breath to steady her nerves.

?Then she reached out and opened the lid.

?The very first item resting on top was a knitted scarf.

?It was wonderfully soft to the touch and dyed in a bright shade of blue, which had always been her mother’s favorite color. Veyra instantly remembered her mother wearing it on crisp, cold mornings during long walks together in the city park.

?She picked it up carefully and set it aside on the sheets.

?Beneath the scarf lay a stack of photographs. They were old and faded around the edges. They showed her mother as a young woman, laughing freely in the sunlight, and later holding a tiny baby in her arms, who was none other than Veyra herself.

?She gently set those photographs aside as well.

?Further down, she found a bundle of old letters, greeting cards, and a small, delicate jewelry box.

?She flipped the latch on the jewelry box and lifted the lid. Inside sat an old silver locket that had lost its shine over the years. She popped the tiny clasp open.

?Tucked inside was a microscopic photograph of her mother, alongside a tiny lock of soft, fine hair that belonged to Veyra herself.

?Her eyes began to burn fiercely with hot tears. She blinked rapidly to clear her vision.

?She slid her hand deeper into the bottom of the cardboard box.

?Her fingertips brushed against something hard and metallic. She gripped it with her fingers and pulled it out into the light.

?It was a small metal tin box, heavily rusted around the hinges and dented on one side. She jammed her fingernail under the lid and pried it open with a soft pop.

?Resting right inside was a single photograph.

?She stared down at the image with complete fixation.

?It was a picture of her mother looking much younger than Veyra had ever seen her before. Her mother was standing side by side with a man.

?Veyra squinted at him, but she did not recognize his face at all.

?He was tall and lean, with jet black hair and sharp, striking facial features. He wore a tailored business suit, and he was smiling warmly at the camera.

?Her mother was smiling just as brightly, looking up at him with an expression of pure, unadulterated happiness.

?Veyra carefully flipped the photograph over to check the back.

?There was handwriting scrawled across the paper in faded cursive ink.

?"To my dearest Vivian, with all my love, signed by I.W."

?Veyra’s hands began to tremble so violently that she almost dropped the picture.

?She stared intently at the mysterious initials written in the corner.

?I.W.

?Who on earth was I.W.?

?She searched her memory, but she came up completely empty. She had never once in her entire life heard her mother mention a person with those initials.

?She looked back down at the photograph. She studied the man’s handsome face and her mother’s radiant smile.

?They looked remarkably close, deeply intimate, and undeniably in love with one another.

?Who was he to her?

?A sudden chill ran through her as she recalled Mrs. Harlow’s cryptic words from earlier that morning.

?"Your mother was hiding something."

?Could this be it? Was this the hidden secret her mother had guarded so fiercely?

?A man. A secret lover. Someone from a forgotten Chapter of her past.

?She examined the photograph once more, specifically looking at the small date stamped in the corner. It was dated several years before Veyra was even born.

?Her mother had lived a whole life before Veyra ever came into the world, a life Veyra knew absolutely nothing about.

?Her thoughts suddenly drifted over to Dorian and the mysterious note she had stumbled upon.

?She remembered the paper she had found tucked away inside the library book about the Star Core Meteorite.

?Isaac West.

?The full name had been written out in Dorian’s neat handwriting. It was a name directly connected to the lost meteorite, and a name deeply tied to Dorian’s own painful past.

?She looked down at the photograph in her hand again.

?I.W.

?Isaac West.

?Could those initials possibly stand for the exact same person?

?Her heart hammered wildly against her chest like a trapped bird.

?She connected the pieces in her mind, thinking about her mother, the secretive late-night visitors, and now this hidden photograph.

?Then she thought about Dorian, the missing meteorite, and the name scribbled in his handwriting.

?Flashes of her past trauma rushed back, bringing thoughts of the clown mask, the gun, and the blood on the floor.

?Could all of these terrifying threads possibly be connected together?

?Could her mother’s brutal murder actually be linked to Dorian’s hidden past?

?She truly did not know the answer yet.

?However, she knew one thing for certain, as she was completely determined to find out the whole truth.

?She reached out and laid the photograph back down flat against the quilt on the bed.

?She stared at it in silence for a long, unbroken moment.

?"To my dearest Vivian, with all my love, signed by I.W."

?She still did not know who I.W. truly was, nor did she know what those exact initials stood for in reality.

?Yet, she understood one undeniable fact.

?Her mother had harbored a massive secret, and uncovering that secret might just be the key to solving every single mystery surrounding her life.

?Her hands were still trembling as she sat there in the quiet room.