✨Chapter Twelve: The Apartment Visit.

I didn't sleep that night.

Not because I couldn't — but because I wouldn't. Sleep felt like surrender, and surrender was how my mother ended up under six feet of dirt while the people who paid for her murder sipped champagne on private jets.

By dawn, the cheap motel room smelled like burnt coffee, cold takeout, and desperation. Sophia snored lightly in her wheelchair near the window, her breath shallow but steady. Emily was stretched out on the bed, one arm flung over her face, her phone buzzing with missed calls every hour on the hour.

I sat cross-legged on my bed, the journal open in front of me, the old SIM card lying next to my laptop like a poisoned tooth I'd pulled from my mother's corpse. I kept replaying the same message in my head — R — Contact M.G. directly. Orchid is not secure. — V.

Who was V?

And more importantly — who was M.G.?

My laptop screen glowed in the pre-dawn darkness, the Blue Orchid Trust and White Orchid Trust bouncing between three different shell companies, each more cryptic than the last. But every time I traced the money far enough, it looped back to one address: Marina Towers, Apartment 14B.

A luxury building I knew well.

When I was fifteen, my father kept an apartment there — a secret place to entertain investors, clients, mistresses, and now, it seemed, partners in crime. Funny how a single door could hold a lifetime's worth of lies behind it.

I snapped the journal shut and scribbled the address on the motel's scratch pad. Emily stirred awake, her phone slipping from her hand.

"God, it's not even six. Did you sleep?" she mumbled, voice thick with exhaustion.

"Couldn't," I said.

She pushed herself up, hair a wild nest, eyes puffy. "Where to now, Sherlock?"

I held up the paper. "My father's old apartment. It's listed under the White Orchid Trust. Maybe M.G. kept it."

Emily rubbed her eyes. "Or maybe it's a dead end."

I shrugged. "I'm going."

Sophia's voice drifted from the corner, thin but sharp. "You're not going alone."

Her eyes were open now, dark hollows ringed in purple bruises. She looked half-ghost, half-steel.

I crossed to her, kneeling at her side. "Soph, you can barely stand."

Her grip was surprisingly strong as she pulled me closer. "And you can't do this by yourself. What if he's there? You think he'll just invite you in for tea?"

Emily threw a hoodie over her tank top, muttering under her breath. "You're both insane."

I looked from one to the other — the only people left who hadn't turned on me, even when they should have. A bitter laugh slipped out.

"Fine," I said. "Road trip."

The city was still half-asleep when we pulled up to Marina Towers.

A doorman sat behind the glass door, pretending to read a newspaper but watching everyone who dared walk up the marble steps. The building hadn't changed since I was a kid — sleek glass walls, metal sculpture out front, a private garden behind high gates. A safe place for the rich to keep their dirty secrets under lock and key.

Emily parked two blocks down, killing the engine. Sophia sat up straighter in the passenger seat, her hands trembling in her lap.

"You okay?" I asked.

She shot me a look. "Do I look okay?"

Fair enough.

Emily twisted around in her seat, one knee on the torn upholstery. "Alright, boss. What's the plan?"

I pulled the folded paper from my pocket, smoothing it out over the dashboard. "Apartment 14B. Top floor. The name on the lease is White Orchid Trust. I doubt they ever changed the locks."

Sophia's eyes narrowed. "So you're gonna knock?"

Emily snorted. "You can't be serious. Nina — if this guy is real, you think he's just hanging out with a fruit plate waiting for you to say hi?"

"I don't think he expects me at all," I said. "That's our advantage."

Emily raised an eyebrow. "So you're gonna break in."

"Not you. Me."

They both spoke at once.

"Hell no," Emily snapped.

"Absolutely not," Sophia hissed.

I held up my hands. "I'll go in through the service stairwell. You two wait in the lobby. If I'm not back in ten minutes, you call the cops. Or run. Or both."

Emily leaned back, arms folded tight. "You really think we're gonna let you waltz in there alone?"

"You don't get a vote," I said. "You already did enough. You almost died for me, both of you. Let me do this part."

Sophia's mouth pressed into a hard line. She didn't argue — just stared at the paper, her eyes full of things she couldn't say it.

The lobby felt like a funeral home — too much marble, too many flowers, too much silence.

Sophia wheeled herself into a corner, facing the elevator. Emily dropped into a plush chair, glaring at the doorman every time he peeked over his paper.

I slipped into the hallway, found the staff door marked Employees Only, and cracked it open with the emergency stairwell key my father always hid in the meter box. Some things never change — like rich men being predictable.

Each step up to the 14th floor felt like walking back in time. I could almost hear my mother's voice, begging my father not to go there. Not to have secrets he never planned to share.

The hallway smelled like fresh paint and lemon polish — too clean for what I was about to find.

Apartment 14B looked the same. A heavy oak door with a brass handle. I pressed my ear to it — silence.

No lights under the crack.

I slipped the old key into the lock. It turned with a soft click.

Inside, the apartment was cold. And empty — or so it seemed at first.

Furniture draped in white sheets. Dust on the windowsills. The living room looked like no one had stepped foot in it in years. But the air smelled different — like stale cigarette smoke and something sour, chemical.

My father's study door was ajar. I nudged it open.

A laptop sat on the desk — old, battered, the screen still flickering with a screensaver. Beside it, a cup of coffee, half-full, the ring still wet on the coaster.

Someone was here.

A floorboard creaked behind me.

I spun — and came face to face with a man in a dark grey suit, sleeves rolled, gun dangling casually at his side like a toy.

"Well," he said, voice smooth as oil, eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses — even indoors. "I knew you'd come eventually."

My mouth went dry. "M.G."

He smirked. "You've been busy, little Orakwue. Digging up graves your mother should've left buried."

I glanced at the coffee cup. Fresh. He'd been waiting.

"I know what you did," I said, my voice steadier than I felt. "The shell companies. The payoffs. The poison."

He tilted his head, like he was studying an insect. "You think you've got it all figured out? You don't even know who V is yet, do you?"

I flinched. He noticed.

He took a step closer, twirling the gun on his finger. "Your mother thought she was so clever. But she never learned the golden rule. Secrets are only useful if you stay alive long enough to use them."

I took a step back, my hip bumping the desk. The laptop chimed — a single file open on the desktop: Josephine Orakwue — Final Recording.

My throat clenched. "She trusted Patel. She trusted you'd come for me when she was gone."

M.G. barked a short, humorless laugh. "Patel was a fool. He should've burned this place to the ground."

I lunged for the laptop. He grabbed my wrist, yanking me forward, the gun pressing into my ribs.

"You know what your problem is, Nina?" he hissed. "You think you're special. You think you're different from her. But you're exactly the same. Poking your nose where it doesn't belong."

I could feel my pulse hammering in my throat. The gun dug deeper.

And then — footsteps. Heavy boots pounding up the hallway.

A crash. The door flew open. Emily burst through, hair wild, swinging a wrench she must've grabbed from the car. She slammed it into M.G.'s arm. The gun clattered to the floor.

I dove, scooping up the laptop as M.G. howled, clutching his wrist.

Sophia wheeled in behind her, her face pale, a cheap taser clutched in her shaking hands. She zapped M.G. in the thigh. He dropped like a stone, twitching on the carpet.

"Go!" Emily yelled. "Now!"

I tucked the laptop under my arm, grabbed Sophia's wheelchair handles, and shoved us all back down the hallway.

Behind us, M.G.'s voice rasped out, low and venomous. "Run, Nina! Run! You can't hide forever. V will find you. V sees everything!"

We didn't stop until we hit the lobby. The doorman stared at us — three women, one bruised, one bleeding, all of us panting like we'd outrun hell itself.

Emily barked at him: "Call 911. Or don't. Doesn't matter — he won't be there when they show up."

We tumbled into the car, the laptop balanced on Sophia's knees, the screen still flickering.

I glanced at the file name — Final Recording.

My hands shook as I opened it. My mother's face appeared — drawn, sickly, eyes ringed in shadow but burning with something I hadn't seen since I was a kid: defiance.

"If you're watching this… they didn't get everything. Find V. V is the root. V is the only one who can burn the garden."

Sophia let out a strangled sob. Emily slammed her palm against the steering wheel, teeth gritted.

I stared at my mother's ghost on the screen, her words hammering into my skull like nails in a coffin.

V.

Who the hell was V?

And why did they want me dead more than my mother?

The screen faded to black.

Outside the window, the sun was rising over the skyline — sharp, bright, merciless.

This was never about my father or Mirabel.

This was about something bigger — a garden of rot that someone would kill to keep hidden.

And if they thought I'd stop now… they didn't know me at all.