Chapter 12 - THE GIRL IN THE GLASS ROOMSaint Orison’s nearby facility appeared to be an abandoned Catholic boarding school.
Behind the decaying stone walls was a modern medical complex with biometric doors and private court-order archives.
Alessandro’s guards entered alongside independent federal agents Daniel had contacted before his disappearance. He no longer trusted the families to investigate themselves.
Isabella remained close to Emma.
Vivian came because Cecilia identified three lower-level rooms where children had once been held.
They found twelve occupied rooms.
Some contained adults declared dead by their families.
Others held teenagers removed through forged psychiatric orders.
Medical teams began evaluating each person independently.
At the end of the pediatric corridor stood a glass room.
A four-year-old girl sat on the floor drawing with blue crayons.
She had Isabella’s eyes.
Daniel stopped.
The girl looked up.
“Daddy?”
Isabella turned toward him.
He could not speak.
The child ran to the glass and pressed both hands against it.
“Daddy Daniel!”
Emma looked at her father.
“You know her?”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
The girl’s name was Lily.
Daniel met her during his first covert visit to Saint Orison. She was an infant then, listed under a research code with no legal guardian.
He began visiting secretly, bringing food, books, and recorded lullabies.
“I was trying to find where she came from,” he said.
“You became her father,” Isabella replied.
“In the only way I could.”
“And never told me.”
“Sofia said she would kill Lily if I brought you into the investigation.”
“You disappeared anyway.”
“I was captured the night I tried to move her.”
The choice had been impossible.
But he had still made it alone.
Lily’s genetic report identified Antonio Bellandi as the source of one preserved line.
The maternal source was Isabella’s deceased mother.
Lily was Isabella’s full biological sister, created years after their mother’s death through stolen reproductive material.
Sofia had built a replacement Bellandi heir.
Someone she could raise inside Saint Orison.
Isabella opened the room.
Lily did not run to her.
She clung to Daniel.
Emma approached holding the blue rabbit.
“Do you want Mr. Bunny?”
Lily stared at the black stitched mark.
Then she screamed.
She backed into the wall, covering her ears.
“No thorns! No thorns!”
The symbol had not represented safety inside Saint Orison.
Staff used it before medical procedures and forced transfers.
Emma dropped the rabbit.
Isabella picked it up and tore the stitched ear completely away.
“No one uses that mark on you again.”
Lily watched her.
“Are you the housekeeper?”
Isabella froze.
“Who told you that?”
“The red lady.”
Vivian looked stricken.
“I have never seen her.”
Lily pointed toward the observation window behind Vivian.
A woman in a red gown stood on the other side.
Same hair.
Same face.
Another Vivian.
The real Vivian turned.
The double smiled and pressed a security control.
Every glass door locked.
Cecilia stared at her sister.
“That’s the woman who visited me for fourteen years.”
Vivian had never visited Cecilia.
Someone had been using her identity inside Saint Orison.
The duplicate removed the red wig.
Beneath it was Sofia’s daughter, Adriana Moretti—a cousin Alessandro had been told died in childhood.
She spoke through the intercom.
“My mother built prisons. Elena built exits. I built replacements.”
The facility alarms began sounding.
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Adriana activated transfer protocols for every patient.
👉 A woman raised under Vivian’s identity had controlled Saint Orison from inside—and she was preparing to erase all the rescued witnesses.
