THE MATRIARCH'S REQUIEM

CHAPTER 4 — THE LOST DAUGHTER

The name stayed in the air long after I said it.

My sister.

Detective Vance didn't immediately respond.

That was the first time since I entered the interrogation room that he looked genuinely uncertain.

Not suspicious.

Not calculating.

Confused.

“You're telling me,” he said slowly, “that Victoria Waldorf had another daughter?”

I stared at him.

“Yes.”

“And she disappeared?”

“Yes.”

“And nobody knows about her?”

I looked down at my hands.

“My mother made sure nobody knew.”

Vance leaned back.

“Elena, I checked the Waldorf family records before this interview.”

Of course he did.

A detective investigating the murder of one of the richest families in the country would have searched every document available.

“You found nothing,” I said.

His expression tightened.

“No birth certificate. No hospital records. No school records. No evidence that another child existed.”

I nodded.

“Exactly.”

The room became quiet.

Because there was only one explanation.

Someone had erased a person.

Not hidden them.

Not protected them.

Erased them.

“Who was she?” Vance asked.

I looked at the photograph of my mother on the tablet.

The perfect woman.

The powerful woman.

The woman who convinced the world she had no weakness.

“She was Victoria Waldorf's first mistake.”

Her name was Isabella.

Isabella Rose Waldorf.

Seven years older than me.

The daughter my mother never wanted anyone to remember.

When I was young, I believed I was an only child.

Everyone told me that.

My father.

My grandparents.

The employees at Waldorf Estate.

Everyone.

But children notice things adults think they don't.

They notice the empty rooms.

The locked doors.

The photographs that suddenly disappear.

The names nobody is allowed to say.

I was six years old when I first saw her.

Not in person.

In a photograph.

It was hidden inside my mother's private office.

A place no child was allowed to enter.

A place where even my father knocked before opening the door.

I remember that photograph clearly.

A little girl standing beside Victoria.

She was maybe eight years old.

Same dark hair.

Same sharp eyes.

Same expression.

Not a happy child.

A controlled one.

Just like me.

On the back of the photograph, there was a handwritten sentence.

Three words.

"My greatest failure."

I didn't understand it then.

I do now.

“Why would your mother erase her own daughter?” Vance asked.

I looked at him.

“Because Isabella wasn't obedient.”

The detective frowned.

“That doesn't seem like enough.”

“You don't know my mother.”

“No,” he admitted.

“I don't.”

I looked away.

“My mother didn't love people.”

A pause.

“She collected them.”

The detective remained silent.

“She didn't want children. She wanted extensions of herself.”

I touched the edge of the table.

“When Isabella refused to become what Victoria wanted, she became a problem.”

“And problems were removed.”

I nodded.

“Exactly.”

The first time I heard Isabella's name spoken aloud was the night before my wedding.

I was twenty-six.

I had already spent my entire life trying to escape Waldorf control.

I thought marrying Daniel would finally give me freedom.

I was wrong.

Because you don't escape a family like mine.

You only move further away before they pull you back.

That night, I found my father sitting alone in the library.

He was drunk.

Something I had almost never seen.

My father was not a weak man.

But Victoria had a way of making everyone weak.

Even him.

“Who is Isabella?” I asked.

The question changed everything.

My father's glass stopped halfway to his mouth.

For several seconds, he didn't breathe.

Then he whispered:

“Where did you hear that name?”

I had never seen fear on my father's face before.

Not real fear.

Not until then.

“Who is she?”

He looked toward the door.

Like he was afraid someone was listening.

Maybe he was.

In Waldorf Estate, walls had ears.

And my mother owned all of them.

“She was your sister.”

My heart stopped.

“What?”

He looked broken.

“She was supposed to inherit everything.”

I stared at him.

“Then why don't I know her?”

Because that was the question.

The only question.

My entire life, I believed I was born into this family.

But maybe I was created to replace someone.

My father looked at me.

And I saw regret.

Real regret.

“She found out what your mother had done.”

“What did she find out?”

He looked away.

“I don't know.”

That was a lie.

I knew it then.

I know it now.

Everyone in my family was good at lying.

But nobody was better than Victoria.

Detective Vance opened another file.

“I found something.”

My attention immediately returned to him.

“What?”

He turned the tablet around.

A scanned document appeared.

Old.

Damaged.

Almost destroyed.

A medical record.

My eyes moved across the page.

Then froze.

Patient: Isabella Rose Waldorf.

My breathing stopped.

“No.”

Vance watched my reaction.

“You recognize it?”

I couldn't answer.

Because after thirty years...

After believing she was nothing more than a ghost...

There it was.

Proof.

She existed.

“She wasn't dead,” I whispered.

Vance's eyes narrowed.

“You knew she might be alive?”

I looked at him.

“No.”

Then I looked back at the document.

“But my mother knew.”

The medical record was from a private psychiatric facility.

A place hidden far away from the city.

A place wealthy families sent their secrets.

The date caught my attention.

Thirty years ago.

The same year Isabella disappeared.

“What happened there?” Vance asked.

I shook my head.

“I don't know.”

But deep inside...

I already knew.

My mother had a pattern.

Anyone who threatened her was either destroyed...

Or locked away.

The detective continued reading.

“There's something else.”

He zoomed in.

A signature appeared at the bottom of the document.

My blood went cold.

Because I recognized it.

Victoria Waldorf.

But below it...

Another signature.

One I never expected to see.

My father's.

“They both knew,” I whispered.

Vance looked at me.

“They signed her away.”

I didn't respond.

Because suddenly the entire family massacre made sense.

The murders.

The secrets.

The fear.

Someone wasn't trying to destroy the Waldorf family.

Someone was trying to punish them.

For thirty years of silence.

A phone on the detective's desk suddenly rang.

Both of us looked at it.

Vance answered.

“Detective Vance.”

His expression changed almost immediately.

“What?”

A pause.

Then another.

His face became pale.

“Are you certain?”

He slowly looked at me.

I already knew.

Before he spoke.

Somewhere deep inside, I knew.

“Who was that?” I asked.

Vance didn't answer immediately.

He placed the phone down.

Then said:

“They found a woman.”

My chest tightened.

“Where?”

“At an abandoned property outside the city.”

I stared at him.

“Who?”

The detective hesitated.

Then:

“She says her name is Isabella Waldorf.”

The world seemed to stop.

Thirty years.

Thirty years of believing she was gone.

Thirty years of wondering why my mother looked haunted whenever I mentioned a name I barely remembered.

And now...

She was alive.

But Detective Vance wasn't finished.

“There is one more thing.”

I looked at him.

“What?”

His expression hardened.

“She knew about the murders before they happened.”

The room went silent.

A terrible thought entered my mind.

If Isabella had returned after thirty years...

And my entire family was dead...

Then maybe she wasn't a victim.

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Maybe she was the executioner.

END OF CHAPTER 4 — THE LOST DAUGHTER