Valeria stared at the photograph until her hand began to shake.
“That isn’t possible.”
Nobody answered.
The baby in Chloe’s arms looked only days old, perhaps younger. Chloe herself appeared pale, bruised around one eye, a bandage crossing her forehead. Yet she was unmistakably conscious.
The photograph had been taken after the night we had always believed she died.
Daniel checked the negative again.
“The sequence is genuine.”
Valeria looked at Marcus.
“When?”
“Several months later.”
“How many?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You remember everything else.”
“Approximately eight.”
Valeria calculated silently.
Then her face changed.
“No.”
Mom understood first.
“Eight months after Chloe disappeared.”
Valeria looked toward Rachel.
Rachel had gone pale.
Marcus noticed.
“So you’ve figured it out.”
Dad said, “Figured out what?”
Valeria pointed at the infant.
“Chloe was pregnant.”
Marcus nodded.
Dad stared.
“Before the fall?”
“Yes.”
“Whose child?”
Marcus smiled without warmth.
“That is the question Arthur spent years preventing anyone from answering.”
Valeria stepped closer.
“You were sleeping with her.”
“Yes.”
“Was the baby yours?”
“I believed so.”
Rachel closed her eyes.
Mercer noticed.
“Rachel?”
She whispered, “Marcus.”
“Don’t.”
She ignored him.
“The baby wasn’t Marcus’s.”
Marcus’s expression hardened.
“You never proved that.”
“I saw the test.”
Thomas turned toward Rachel.
“What test?”
“Arthur had one performed after the birth.”
Valeria looked from one face to another.
“Who was the father?”
Rachel hesitated.
Marcus said, “Don’t.”
Valeria raised the revolver.
“Who?”
Rachel looked at Daniel.
He shook his head immediately.
“No.”
“Not you.”
His relief was visible.
Rachel’s gaze moved to Thomas.
Thomas stared.
“No.”
Marcus laughed softly.
“Family keeps surprising you, Father.”
Thomas stepped toward him.
“Explain.”
Rachel whispered, “The child was yours.”
The room went silent.
Thomas looked genuinely unable to understand.
“What?”
“Chloe’s baby.”
“That’s absurd.”
“She was seventeen,” Mom said.
Thomas turned toward her.
“I never touched Chloe.”
Rachel said, “Not Chloe.”
Everyone stared.
Valeria whispered, “Then how could—”
Rachel closed her eyes.
“Chloe wasn’t the biological mother.”
The sentence seemed nonsensical.
Valeria shook her head.
“She was pregnant.”
“Yes.”
“She gave birth.”
“Yes.”
“Then she was the mother.”
“Gestationally.”
Marcus said sharply, “Enough.”
Rachel looked at him.
“You’ve spent years protecting this.”
“I’ve spent years protecting the children.”
Valeria moved closer.
“What children?”
Rachel took a painful breath.
“Arthur used the network for more than money.”
Mom stared at the shelves.
“What did Dad do?”
“Not trafficking.”
Rachel said it quickly.
“Nothing like that.”
“Then what?”
“Identity relocation.”
Dad frowned.
“For witnesses?”
“Sometimes. Abuse victims. People escaping organized crime. Families whose identities had been compromised.”
Daniel nodded slowly.
“That explains some of the shell identities.”
Rachel continued.
“Arthur believed official protection programs were vulnerable. So he built his own.”
Thomas laughed bitterly.
“Of course Father convinced himself crime became virtue if he chose the victims.”
Mom ignored him.
“And Chloe?”
“Arthur recruited her after she discovered Marcus.”
“To spy on him?”
“At first.”
Marcus looked away.
Rachel continued.
“Then Arthur asked Chloe to carry an embryo.”
Valeria stared.
“At seventeen?”
“She was eighteen by then.”
“That makes it better?”
“No.”
“Whose embryo?”
Rachel looked toward Thomas again.
Thomas’s expression had changed.
He knew.
“No.”
Rachel nodded.
“Yours and Miriam’s.”
Mom whispered, “Miriam?”
Thomas’s wife.
A woman I remembered only from old photographs.
She had supposedly died in the same Prague accident that killed Thomas.
Thomas backed away.
“Miriam was pregnant.”
“Yes.”
“She died.”
“Yes.”
“The baby died.”
“No.”
His knees seemed to weaken.
Rachel continued.
“Doctors recovered viable embryos from fertility treatment you and Miriam had undergone before the accident.”
Thomas stared.
“Father kept them?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Marcus said, “Insurance.”
Thomas looked at his son.
“What?”
“Arthur wanted another heir outside your control.”
“You were already my heir.”
“Exactly.”
The cruelty of the logic settled over the room.
Thomas turned toward the photograph.
“My child.”
Rachel nodded.
“Your daughter.”
Valeria looked at Chloe holding the infant.
“Where is she?”
Marcus answered.
“Safe.”
“Everyone keeps saying that.”
“Because locations are dangerous.”
“You kept me imprisoned while people called it protection.”
Marcus’s face tightened.
Valeria continued.
“So stop using that word.”
Mom looked at the red folder.
“There must be records.”
She searched through the pages.
Birth certificates.
Transfer documents.
Codes.
Then she found a page bearing a hospital seal.
“Bellweather Maternity Annex.”
Daniel frowned.
“This hospital never had maternity services.”
Rachel said, “Officially.”
Mom read.
“Female infant. Gestational carrier: Chloe Vance.”
Valeria closed her eyes.
Chloe had survived.
She had carried a child while the world searched for her body.
“How did Arthur convince her?”
Rachel answered quietly.
“He didn’t force her.”
Valeria looked furious.
“You expect me to believe she volunteered?”
“She believed she was helping protect a child from Thomas.”
Thomas laughed in disbelief.
“My own daughter.”
“Arthur told Chloe you would use the child to reclaim the network.”
Thomas looked toward his father’s shelves.
“He turned everyone against me.”
Marcus said, “You made it easy.”
Thomas spun toward him.
“You have no idea what he did to me.”
“I know exactly.”
Marcus stepped closer.
“He raised me to believe you were dead too.”
Thomas froze.
“What?”
Marcus smiled bitterly.
“You think you were the only one buried alive on paper?”
Rachel whispered, “Marcus.”
“No. We’re telling truths now.”
He looked at Thomas.
“Arthur took me from you when I was six.”
Thomas’s face drained.
“No.”
“You saw me again years later and didn’t recognize me.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Marcus Vale wasn’t my birth name.”
Mom looked at the red folder.
“What was it?”
Marcus answered himself.
“Matthew.”
Thomas grabbed the edge of the desk.
“Miriam named our son Matthew.”
“Yes.”
“You—”
“I’m him.”
Thomas stared at the adult son he had apparently lost twice.
No one spoke.
Then Valeria said, “Where is Chloe?”
Marcus looked at her.
“I last saw her six years ago.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Maine.”
Mom looked up.
“The summer house.”
Marcus nodded.
“She was helping Arthur move the original archive.”
“Arthur was alive six years ago?”
“Yes.”
Thomas whispered, “How long?”
Marcus looked at him.
“Longer than you’d like.”
“Is he alive now?”
“I don’t know.”
Valeria picked up Chloe’s photograph.
“Why didn’t she contact me?”
“She tried.”
Dad turned.
“What?”
Marcus looked at him.
“Three letters.”
Valeria stared.
“I never got letters.”
“No.”
“Who intercepted them?”
Marcus looked toward Dad.
Dad shook his head.
“Not me.”
Thomas said, “Then who?”
Marcus glanced at Rachel.
Rachel whispered, “I did.”
Valeria moved toward her.
“Why?”
Rachel tried to sit upright.
“Because Arthur said contacting you would expose Chloe.”
“You chose Chloe over me?”
“I chose the person who was free over the person we thought Robert could still protect.”
Valeria laughed once.
“Protect.”
Dad lowered his eyes.
Rachel continued.
“I was wrong.”
“What did the letters say?”
“I kept them.”
“Where?”
“With Evan.”
Daniel looked at her.
“You involved a child?”
“No. They’re sealed in a safe.”
“Where is Evan?”
Rachel hesitated.
Marcus said, “Don’t.”
Valeria raised the revolver again.
Marcus stepped directly toward the barrel.
“You want to shoot me? Do it.”
Dad moved.
Valeria shouted, “Stay back!”
Everyone froze.
Marcus stopped less than three feet from her.
“You want your son.”
“Yes.”
“I want him alive.”
“Then tell me where he is.”
Marcus’s eyes softened.
“He’s with Evan.”
“Where?”
“At the coast.”
“Maine?”
“Yes.”
“The summer house?”
“No.”
“Where?”
Marcus hesitated.
A distant mechanical sound interrupted him.
Daniel looked toward the tunnel.
“What is that?”
Dad listened.
“Generator?”
Thomas shook his head.
“No.”
The sound deepened.
Metal shutters began descending over the archive shelves.
Marcus spun toward the control panel.
“What did you do?”
Mom said, “Nothing.”
Thomas looked upward.
“Lockdown.”
The steel gate behind us slammed shut.
Red lights appeared along the ceiling.
A recorded voice filled the chamber.
“Archive compromise detected. Dissolution protocol initiated.”
Mom stared.
“Dad’s kill switch.”
Marcus ran toward the desk.
“How do we stop it?”
“You said the archive didn’t matter.”
“It matters if it destroys the trust keys.”
“What happens?” I asked.
Mom looked around.
“I don’t know.”
Daniel smelled the air.
Then his face changed.
“Smoke.”
A thin white vapor began entering through ceiling vents.
Dad pulled his shirt over his mouth.
“Gas.”
Marcus shouted at Mom.
“Code!”
“I don’t remember.”
“You have to.”
Thomas grabbed her shoulders.
“Evelyn!”
Dad shoved him away.
“Don’t touch her.”
Mom closed her eyes.
The vapor thickened.
Valeria coughed.
Mercer dragged Rachel toward the floor.
Daniel searched the walls.
“There has to be an emergency release.”
Mom pressed both palms against the desk.
“Three points and a center.”
She touched four positions.
Nothing.
Again.
Nothing.
Dad coughed.
“Evelyn.”
“Stop talking.”
She tried another sequence.
A compartment opened beneath the desk.
Inside was a keyboard.
Mom stared.
A prompt glowed on the small screen.
CUSTODIAN VERIFICATION.
“Name?” I asked.
“No.”
She shook her head.
“It wants a phrase.”
“What phrase?”
Her face changed.
Something remembered.
She typed.
THE PERSON WHO WANTS POWER MUST NEVER HAVE IT.
The system responded.
PRIMARY CUSTODIAN ACCEPTED.
Then another prompt appeared.
SECONDARY CUSTODIAN REQUIRED.
Everyone looked at Valeria.
She stepped toward the keyboard.
“I don’t know the phrase.”
Mom said, “Dad would have taught you somehow.”
“He never did.”
“Chloe.”
Valeria froze.
“Chloe may have.”
She closed her eyes.
I watched her search eleven-year-old memories.
Then she whispered, “She used to say something.”
“What?”
“When we talked about leaving town.”
Valeria typed.
NO ONE OWNS ANOTHER PERSON.
The screen changed.
SECONDARY CUSTODIAN ACCEPTED.
The vents stopped.
The shutters froze.
Fresh air began pumping into the chamber.
We coughed and waited.
Then the computer displayed another message.
DISSOLUTION AVAILABLE.
Mom stared.
One button appeared beneath it.
EXECUTE.
Thomas said, “Don’t.”
Marcus said the same thing.
Dad looked at Mom.
She looked at him.
“What happens if I press it?”
He shook his head.
“I truly don’t know.”
Thomas stepped forward.
“You could destroy billions in assets.”
“Criminal assets.”
“Some belong to innocent people.”
Marcus said, “He’s right.”
Mom looked at Valeria.
“What do you think?”
Valeria stared at the button.
Then she shook her head.
“Not until we get the children.”
Mom nodded.
She selected DELAY.
The screen requested a duration.
“Maximum seventy-two hours,” Daniel said.
Mom entered seventy-two.
The countdown began.
71:59:59.
Thomas exhaled.
Marcus looked toward the sealed gate.
“You’ve just told the entire active network that the archive has been accessed.”
Dad frowned.
“How?”
“The kill switch sends a warning.”
“To whom?”
Marcus looked at Valeria.
“Every account holder.”
Daniel swore.
“That means they’ll run.”
“Yes.”
“And destroy evidence.”
“Yes.”
Mom looked at the countdown.
“Then we have seventy-two hours.”
Marcus shook his head.
“No.”
He looked toward the tunnel.
“You have much less.”
“Why?”
“Because whoever controls the network now knows both custodians are alive.”
Valeria stared.
“You control it.”
Marcus shook his head.
“Not anymore.”
“Who does?”
Before he could answer, Rachel’s phone began ringing inside her coat.
She stared at the screen.
Her face went white.
“What?”
She showed Marcus.
One word appeared.
EVAN.
Rachel answered.
“Baby?”
No response.
Then a child’s frightened voice came through.
“Mom?”
Rachel began crying.
“I’m here.”
“There’s a man outside.”
Marcus grabbed the phone.
“What man?”
The boy whispered.
“He says Grandpa sent him.”
Thomas stared.
Rachel said, “Evan, lock the door.”
“I did.”
“Where’s Noah?”
Valeria went completely still.
“Noah?” she whispered.
Rachel looked at her.
The name answered a question before anyone explained it.
Valeria’s son.
On the phone, Evan whispered, “He’s hiding.”
A crash sounded.
The child screamed.
The call ended.
Click here to continue reading: PART 11: We Raced Toward the Coast for Valeria’s Son While Marcus Revealed Why Someone Needed Both Boys Before the Seventy-Two Hours Expired
The Woman on the Evening News Had My Dead Sister’s Face, and My Mother Recognized Her Before I Did
Part 10 of 27
