UNVEILED TRUTH

It began with a siren.

Not loud—subtle. A soft, steady tone that echoed through the Gavrila estate's private security system. A sound no one outside the family would ever recognize, but one that froze every servant and guard in place.

Adelina was in the east corridor, still shaken by the anonymous message when she heard it. The hallway lights flickered once—brief, almost dismissive. But she knew. Something was wrong.

She ran.

The commotion centered around the second-floor security room. Cassandra barked orders into her phone. Stefan paced, shirt unbuttoned, eyes sharper than usual. Victor stood with both hands behind his back, silent but furious.

And Nathan was already moving.

"What happened?" Adelina asked, breathless.

Victor turned to her sharply. "You should be in your room."

Nathan ignored him. "There was a breach."

"What kind?"

"A surveillance blackout," Cassandra answered, not looking up. "Someone accessed restricted archives. From inside."

Adelina felt the chill before the words truly hit. "What archives?"

No one answered.

She looked to Nathan.

His silence was confirmation.

That night, the estate was placed under lockdown. All entries sealed. Phones monitored. Even Mira wasn't allowed past the guest quarters.

But Adelina wasn't the same girl she'd been a week ago. She knew which doors didn't creak, which hallways weren't covered by cameras. And she still had the keys to the old medical wing.

She waited until nearly three in the morning.

Then she slipped out.

The air inside the medical wing was cold, sterile. Cabinets glinted in the dim emergency lighting. Most drawers were locked. Most.

She found the one labeled "AG—confidential."

The file was slim. But the contents were explosive.

The early entries matched what she'd seen before: illness, isolation, therapy.

But then—an amendment. A medical note, hidden between sheets.

Subject transferred from Project: Iliris. Genetic code partially reconstructed. Full integration successful.

Adelina's breath caught.

Another sheet.

Identity reassignment finalized. Visual-matching confirmed. Subject adapted. Behavior tracking engaged.

Her hands trembled.

At the bottom of one report was a list of initials: VG. NG. CG.

Victor. Nathan. Cassandra.

They knew.

They all knew.

She backed away, pressing a hand over her mouth.

She wasn't Adelina.

Not really.

She confronted Victor the next morning.

In the rose conservatory, beneath glass and climbing vines, with sunlight too soft to match the weight in her chest.

"You lied to me," she said, voice barely holding steady.

Victor set down his cup of tea. "About what?"

"You know what."

He didn't deny it.

Instead, he said, "You were dying."

Adelina froze.

He continued. "The original Adelina. She had a condition—something rare. Degenerative. She wouldn't survive past fourteen."

"She was me."

"She was our daughter," he said. "But we couldn't lose her."

"So you—what? Recreated her?"

"We transferred what we could. Memory. Mannerism. Face. A genetic match, perfectly engineered. You were the first to survive the procedure. You weren't born Adelina. But you became her."

Adelina stumbled back, shaking her head.

"Everything I am—"

"Was built. Yes," Victor said calmly. "But it's yours now. You lived it."

"I'm not your daughter," she whispered.

"You're the only version that lived," he said.

She turned away.

But Nathan was there.

Waiting.

He had followed her. Of course he had.

She faced him, her voice breaking. "You knew."

He nodded.

"Since when?"

"I helped design the integration protocol," he said quietly. "I watched over you every day after. Trained the staff. Filtered the memories. Protected you."

"Because I was an experiment?"

"No," he said. "Because you were mine."

Her knees buckled. She caught herself on the ivy-covered wall.

"Nathan," she choked out, "tell me who I really am."

He stepped forward, eyes full of something more dangerous than pity.

"You want the truth?" he whispered.

She nodded.

He cupped her face with trembling hands.

"You weren't made to be my sister."

He leaned in.

"You were made to stay with me."

And in that moment, Adelina realized—this had never been protection.

It had always been possession.

And now, she didn't know how to escape it.

Not when she wasn't even sure she was real.