tt_Part 2: The words barely made it out of my throat.
Part 2
“My mother?” I said.
The words barely made it out of my throat.
Maren stood just inside the doorway, one hand gripping the edge of the blue blanket around our son. The colored lights from the Christmas tree flickered across her face, catching the tears she refused to let fall.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Your mother.”
I stared at her, waiting for the accusation to become impossible, for some detail to reveal that I had misunderstood.
But Maren did not look confused.
She looked afraid.
The baby shifted in my arms, his cheek pressing against my chest. Instinctively, I tightened my hold on him.
“My mother did what?”
Maren glanced toward the quiet street behind me.
“Come inside.”
I stepped into the townhouse. She closed the door quickly and turned the lock.
That small motion unsettled me more than it should have.
The house smelled like cinnamon, warm milk, and pine. A half-decorated Christmas tree stood near the window. Several ornaments remained in an open box on the floor, as though Maren had been too tired to finish.
A bassinet rested beside the sofa.
There were bottles on the coffee table, folded blankets on a chair, and a stack of unopened mail near the fireplace.
No second wineglass.
No man’s coat.
No evidence of the life I had imagined her building without me.
Only signs that she had been alone.
Completely alone.
“What did my mother do?” I asked again.
Maren walked toward the sofa but did not sit.
“Do you remember the day I came to your office in April?”
Of course I remembered.
It had been three weeks before I filed for divorce.
She had appeared at the top floor of Helix Dominion’s headquarters without an appointment, pale and visibly shaken. I had been preparing for the most important acquisition of my career. Investors had flown in from London and Tokyo. My mother, Celeste, had been there too, seated at the long glass table as chairwoman of the board.
Maren had asked to speak with me privately.
I had refused.
Or at least, that was how I remembered it.
“You arrived during the Meridian negotiations,” I said.
“I came because I had taken three pregnancy tests.”
The room seemed to tilt.
Our son made a tiny sound in his sleep.
Maren continued.
“I was terrified, but I was happy. I knew things between us were bad, but I thought the baby might finally force us to stop pretending. I thought maybe we would sit down and talk honestly.”
“You never told me.”
“I tried.”
The certainty in her voice struck like a slap.
“I asked your assistant to tell you it was urgent. She went into the boardroom. A few minutes later, your mother came out.”
I remembered seeing Celeste speaking to Maren through the frosted glass wall.
At the time, I had assumed my mother was calming her down.
“She told me you didn’t want to see me,” Maren said. “She said you had instructed security to remove me if I caused a scene.”
“I never said that.”
“I know that now.”
My mouth went dry.
“What else?”
Maren’s gaze dropped to the baby.
“She said you already knew I might be pregnant.”
“That’s impossible.”
“She said you had suspected it for weeks, and that you didn’t want a child with me.”
My grip tightened around the blanket.
“Maren, I would never—”
“She had proof.”
The words stopped me.
Maren walked to a narrow cabinet beside the fireplace and opened the top drawer. From beneath a stack of papers, she removed a cream-colored envelope.
She handed it to me.
My name was embossed across the front.
Everett Vale.
Inside was a photocopy of a document bearing the logo of my private law firm.
It was titled: Reproductive Liability and Marital Dissolution Strategy.
I read the first paragraph twice.
Then a third time.
The document appeared to outline measures designed to protect my company shares and family trust in the event Maren became pregnant before divorce proceedings were complete. It recommended challenging paternity, limiting financial support, and forcing a confidential settlement.
At the bottom of the final page was my signature.
Only it wasn’t my signature.
It was close.
Close enough to fool anyone who had not watched me sign thousands of documents.
But the angle of the final stroke was wrong.
The pressure was too even.
“This is forged,” I said.
Maren gave a bitter laugh.
“I know that now too.”
I looked up sharply.
“What changed?”
“Our divorce hearing.”
The memory returned instantly.
Maren had sat across the courtroom beside her attorney, staring at me with a coldness I had never seen before. She had accepted a smaller settlement than she was entitled to. She had refused my penthouse, refused company shares, refused the vacation property in Aspen.
She had asked only for the townhouse and privacy.
At the time, I had assumed she wanted to sever every connection between us.
“I saw you sign the final agreement,” she said. “Your real signature looked different. At first, I thought I was imagining it. Then I compared it to old birthday cards, checks, and the deed to this house.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“Because by then, I was five months pregnant, divorced, and convinced you had abandoned me.”
Her voice broke.
“And because your mother called me the night before the hearing.”
A cold rage moved through me, slow and poisonous.
“What did she say?”
“She told me that if I ever revealed the pregnancy, she would make sure everyone believed the baby belonged to someone else.”
I took a step toward her.
“She threatened you?”
“She threatened my father.”
I froze.
Maren’s father, Thomas Bell, had spent twenty-seven years working as a government accountant. He was quiet, honorable, and obsessive about following rules. Two years earlier, he had nearly lost everything after being accused of mishandling classified financial records.
My legal team had helped clear his name.
Or so I had been told.
“Celeste said the investigation into my father had never truly disappeared,” Maren said. “She said she could reopen it with one phone call.”
“That investigation was baseless.”
“I know. But she had copies of confidential files. Documents she should never have seen.”
The implications came together too quickly.
My mother had not simply lied to my wife.
She had used private legal information, forged documents, manipulated my staff, and threatened an innocent man.
All to keep me from learning I had a son.
“Why?” I asked. “Why would she do this?”
Maren looked at me with exhausted disbelief.
“You really don’t know?”
“No.”
She studied my face, perhaps searching for another lie.
Then she crossed the room and lifted a thin black folder from beneath the coffee table.
“Your mother came here two weeks before our divorce was finalized.”
I felt the blood drain from my face.
“To this house?”
“She let herself in.”
“She doesn’t have a key.”
“She did.”
Maren opened the folder and removed several photographs.
The first showed Celeste standing in Maren’s kitchen.
The image was grainy, captured from the security camera above the back door. The timestamp read 11:42 p.m.
The next photograph showed my mother opening drawers.
Another showed her standing over Maren, who was seated at the kitchen table.
In the final image, Celeste held one hand against Maren’s stomach.
The gesture appeared almost gentle.
The expression on my mother’s face was not.
“What happened that night?” I asked.
“She told me your family could not allow the baby to be born.”
Every muscle in my body went rigid.
“She offered me money first. Ten million dollars to leave the country, terminate the pregnancy, and never contact you again.”
The room went silent except for the soft crackling of the fireplace.
“And when you refused?”
“She said accidents happened every day.”
I stared at the woman I had once promised to protect.
She had faced my mother alone, pregnant and terrified, while I had been attending meetings, signing contracts, and congratulating myself for managing a clean divorce.
I had failed her more completely than I had ever understood.
“Why didn’t you call the police?”
“With what proof? A wealthy woman making vague statements in my kitchen? Your mother has judges at her Christmas parties. Senators answer her calls. Police commissioners sit on the foundation board.”
“She threatened my child.”
“She threatened yours too.”
I looked down.
My son had opened his eyes.
They were dark blue, unfocused and calm.
For one suspended moment, he seemed to be looking directly at me.
Something inside me broke.
Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
It was the quiet collapse of every excuse I had ever used to defend myself.
I had told myself Maren left because she could not handle my ambition.
I had told myself she had become bitter, unreasonable, impossible to please.
I had told myself the divorce was inevitable.
The truth was much uglier.
She had been begging for my attention while people I trusted were building walls between us.
And I had made their work easy.
“What is his name?” I asked.
Maren’s eyes softened.
“Elias.”
“Elias,” I repeated.
The baby’s fingers tightened around mine.
“Does he have my last name?”
“No.”
The answer hurt, though I had no right to be hurt.
“His name is Elias Bell.”
I nodded slowly.
“He should keep it.”
Maren looked surprised.
“Until you decide otherwise,” I added. “I haven’t earned the right to give him anything. Not even my name.”
A tear finally slid down her cheek.
I wanted to wipe it away.
I did not move.
“Let me hold him,” she said.
I hesitated before placing Elias back into her arms. The moment his warmth left my chest, I felt strangely empty.
Maren settled onto the sofa and adjusted the blanket around him.
I remained standing.
“What else are you not telling me?”
Her shoulders stiffened.
I knew then there was more.
The forged document, the threats, the secret pregnancy—none of it explained the fear I had seen when she locked the door.
“Maren.”
She stared at the Christmas tree.
“Three days after Elias was born, someone came to the hospital.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
The words were barely audible.
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“A nurse entered my room around two in the morning. She said she needed to take him for a routine blood test.”
My pulse quickened.
“I had barely slept. I handed him over.”
Her arms tightened protectively around Elias.
“Twenty minutes later, another nurse came in and asked why the baby wasn’t in the room. She said no tests had been ordered.”
A sharp, violent pressure filled my chest.
“What happened?”
“The hospital went into lockdown. Security found Elias in an empty stairwell on the fourth floor.”
I moved closer.
“Was he hurt?”
“No. But the woman who took him was gone.”
“Did they have camera footage?”
“The cameras on that floor stopped working for eleven minutes.”
My mother’s company owned one of the largest private security firms on the East Coast.
Eleven missing minutes would not be difficult for her to arrange.
“Why are you here alone?” I demanded. “Why didn’t you call me after that?”
Maren stood so quickly Elias stirred.
“Because I didn’t know whether calling you would save him or put him in more danger.”
The accusation was quiet.
That made it worse.
“You thought I might be involved.”
“I didn’t know what to think.”
“How could you believe I would harm my own son?”
“How could I believe my husband would have me dragged from his office while I was pregnant?”
I opened my mouth.
Nothing came out.
She was right.
The truth did not matter if every piece of evidence told a different story.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
The words felt pitiful.
“I know sorry isn’t enough.”
“No,” she replied. “It isn’t.”
“I’ll get you protection tonight.”
“No one from your company.”
“Agreed.”
“No one your mother knows.”
“That may be harder.”
“Then find someone she’s afraid of.”
Before I could answer, headlights swept across the front window.
Maren went still.
A black sedan stopped at the curb.
My first thought was that my driver had returned, but I had dismissed him hours ago.
The rear door opened.
A tall man stepped onto the sidewalk.
He wore a dark overcoat and carried a silver-topped cane.
Even from behind the curtain, I recognized him.
My father.
Maren’s face lost all color.
“What is he doing here?” she whispered.
I turned toward her.
“You know my father came here?”
“Everett, your father has been dead for twelve years.”
The front doorbell rang.
Neither of us moved.
It rang again.
Three slow chimes.
My father, Adrian Vale, had died in a private plane crash over the Atlantic when I was twenty-six. No bodies had been recovered, but the wreckage was found.
I had attended his memorial.
I had watched my mother place his wedding ring inside an empty coffin.
Yet the man outside stood with the same rigid posture, the same slight tilt of his head, and the same silver cane he had carried after a childhood riding accident.
“Stay here,” I said.
Maren caught my wrist.
“Don’t open the door.”
A knock followed.
Then a voice.
“Everett.”
Every hair on my arms rose.
It was his voice.
Older.
Rougher.
But unmistakable.
“Open the door, son.”
Maren’s fingers tightened around me.
I moved slowly toward the entrance.
“Everett, please.”
I looked back at her and Elias.
The sight of them—my former wife clutching my newborn son beneath the light of a half-finished Christmas tree—felt painfully fragile.
I reached the door but did not unlock it.
“Who are you?” I called.
A pause.
Then the man outside chuckled.
“You still ask questions when you already know the answer.”
My father used to say that to me whenever I challenged him in board meetings.
No one else knew.
Not even my mother.
I opened the small security screen beside the door. The camera displayed the porch in stark black and white.
Adrian Vale stared directly into the lens.
His hair was almost entirely silver now. A thin scar ran from his left temple to his jaw.
But he was alive.
“I watched you die,” I whispered.
“No,” he said through the door. “You watched your mother bury an empty coffin.”
I unlocked the deadbolt.
Maren rushed forward.
“Wait.”
But the door was already open.
My father stepped inside and closed it behind him.
For several seconds, we simply stared at each other.
Then his gaze shifted to Elias.
His expression changed.
Not with surprise.
With recognition.
“So,” he said. “The child survived.”
Maren backed away.
I moved between them.
“What does that mean?”
Adrian removed his gloves one finger at a time.
“It means Celeste is losing control.”
“You knew about the baby?”
“I knew there was a possibility.”
“Before I did?”
“Yes.”
The calmness of his answer ignited something violent inside me.
I grabbed the front of his coat and slammed him against the wall.
The silver cane struck the floor.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because until six days ago, I wasn’t certain the child was yours.”
Maren gasped.
I tightened my fist.
“He is mine.”
“I believe you.”
“That isn’t what you said.”
“No. It isn’t.”
His eyes held mine.
There was no fear in them.
Only calculation.
The same look he had worn while negotiating hostile takeovers and destroying competitors across conference tables.
“Let him go,” Maren said.
I released him.
Adrian adjusted his collar.
“You always did inherit your mother’s temper.”
“Say that again and I’ll put you back in the grave.”
A faint smile touched his mouth.
“There’s the son I remember.”
“You don’t get to call me that.”
“No,” he said. “Perhaps I don’t.”
He reached into his coat.
I moved in front of Maren, but Adrian withdrew only a small flash drive.
He placed it on the table.
“Everything you believe about your divorce began seven years before you met Maren.”
I stared at the drive.
“What’s on it?”
“Your mother’s private records.”
“Why do you have them?”
“Because I spent twelve years collecting them.”
Maren shifted Elias higher against her shoulder.
“You disappeared to investigate your wife?”
“I disappeared to survive her.”
The room seemed colder.
Adrian looked at me.
“The plane crash was not an accident. Celeste ordered it.”
I shook my head.
“My mother loved you.”
“Your mother loves control.”
He glanced toward the drive.
“When I discovered what she had done, I tried to remove her from the family trust. Two days later, my plane went down.”
“How did you survive?”
“I was warned before takeoff. The pilot wasn’t.”
His voice did not change, but something dark moved behind his eyes.
“I left the aircraft in Nova Scotia. Celeste believed I was still aboard when it continued over the Atlantic.”
“And you let me think you were dead?”
“I had no choice.”
“You had twelve years.”
“I had enemies watching every border, every bank account, and every person I loved.”
“You mean every person you abandoned.”
His jaw tightened.
For the first time, the calm facade cracked.
“I stayed away because Celeste would have used you to reach me.”
“She used me anyway.”
“Yes.”
That single word carried more guilt than any apology could have.
I looked toward the flash drive.
“What does this have to do with Maren?”
“Everything.”
Adrian picked up the cane.
“The Vale family trust transfers controlling voting rights to the eldest legitimate heir when that heir produces a biological child.”
I stared at him.
“That clause was repealed.”
“No. Celeste made you believe it was.”
Maren went very still.
Adrian continued.
“The moment Elias was born, a portion of the trust shifted away from your mother. She lost the power to remove you as CEO, liquidate certain holdings, or control the family foundation.”
“So she hid the pregnancy to protect her position?”
“At first.”
“At first?”
My father looked at Elias again.
“Then she discovered who Maren’s mother was.”
Maren frowned.
“My mother died when I was nine.”
“I know.”
“How?”
Adrian turned to her.
“Because I was there.”
Maren’s face hardened.
“My mother died in a car accident.”
“No,” he said. “She died because she found out what Celeste was doing.”
A stunned silence followed.
“What are you talking about?” Maren asked.
“Your mother, Lydia Bell, worked as Celeste’s personal accountant. She discovered secret transfers from the Vale foundation into shell companies, political campaigns, private intelligence operations, and illegal research programs.”
Maren shook her head.
“My mother was a school bookkeeper.”
“That was the life she chose after she escaped.”
“Escaped from what?”
“From us.”
The word hung in the air.
Adrian stepped closer, but Maren recoiled.
He stopped.
“Lydia stole evidence before she left. Celeste spent years trying to recover it.”
“My mother died because of financial documents?”
“No.”
His answer was immediate.
“She died because of what the documents proved.”
I looked at the drive.
“Which was?”
Adrian’s gaze returned to me.
“That Helix Dominion was never truly a technology company.”
A bitter laugh escaped me.
“We employ twenty thousand people. We build encryption systems, medical software, defense networks—”
“And surveillance architecture,” he said. “Behavioral prediction systems. Identity reconstruction. Genetic indexing.”
Maren lowered her eyes to Elias.
My skin prickled.
“Genetic indexing?”
“Celeste has been collecting biological data from employees, clients, political donors, and their families for more than twenty years.”
“Why?”
“To identify leverage. Illnesses. Affairs. Hidden relatives. Children born outside marriages. Anything that could be used to influence powerful people.”
“That’s insane.”
“It is also true.”
He pointed at the drive.
“The proof is there.”
I did not touch it.
“Why did Maren’s identity matter?”
“Because Lydia was carrying something when she disappeared. Something Celeste never found.”
“What?”
Adrian’s eyes settled on Maren.
“A master key.”
Maren stared at him.
“I don’t know anything about a key.”
“Your mother hid it.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why did Celeste care that I was pregnant?”
“Because she believes Lydia passed the key to you.”
Maren laughed once, sharply.
“I was nine years old.”
“Lydia trusted no adult. She knew Celeste could buy them, threaten them, or kill them.”
A memory seemed to pass across Maren’s face.
She looked suddenly distant.
“What is it?” I asked.
“My mother gave me something the night before she died.”
Adrian’s expression sharpened.
“What?”
“A music box.”
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know. My father packed away most of her things.”
“Then we need to find it.”
A sound came from upstairs.
Soft.
Almost unnoticeable.
The creak of a floorboard.
All three of us looked toward the staircase.
Maren whispered, “No one else is here.”
Adrian raised one finger to his lips.
He reached beneath his coat and removed a compact pistol.
I stared at him.
“You brought a gun into a house with my child?”
“I brought a gun because your child is in this house.”
Another creak.
Closer this time.
The upstairs hallway was dark.
Adrian moved toward the stairs, but I stepped ahead of him.
“Stay with Maren.”
“You’re unarmed.”
“It’s my house.”
“No,” Maren said. “It’s mine.”
Despite everything, the correction nearly made me smile.
Then a shadow moved across the wall above us.
Adrian lifted the pistol.
“Come down slowly,” he called.
Silence.
The Christmas lights blinked red, then gold, then green.
A figure appeared at the top of the stairs.
A woman wearing a hospital nurse’s uniform.
Maren sucked in a breath.
“That’s her.”
The woman smiled.
In one hand, she held a syringe.
In the other, she held Maren’s phone.
“Mrs. Vale,” she said pleasantly.
“We’re divorced,” Maren replied.
“Not according to the trust.”
The nurse looked at Elias.
“Give me the child.”
Adrian aimed the weapon at her chest.
“Take one more step and you die.”
The woman’s smile widened.
“You were always theatrical, Adrian.”
Then she reached up and pulled off the blond wig.
Dark hair fell around her shoulders.
I knew that face.
Everyone in Washington knew it.
Dr. Helena Cross, director of Helix Dominion’s medical research division.
She had attended my wedding.
She had delivered a speech at my father’s memorial.
And she had been my mother’s closest friend for thirty years.
“Helena,” I said.
“Everett.”
She sounded almost affectionate.
“Your mother said you might cause trouble tonight.”
“You took my son from the hospital.”
“I was trying to protect him.”
“By leaving him in a stairwell?”
“Security arrived sooner than expected.”
Adrian’s finger tightened on the trigger.
“Where is Celeste?”
Helena’s eyes shifted toward the window.
“She’s waiting.”
The front windows suddenly went dark.
Not because the lights had failed.
Because something large had blocked them.
Vehicles filled the street.
Black SUVs.
At least six.
Men in dark uniforms stepped onto the sidewalk.
Maren held Elias against her chest.
Adrian swore quietly.
I turned toward Helena.
“What does my mother want?”
“The child,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because Elias isn’t merely your heir.”
She looked at Maren with something close to pity.
“He’s the first person born with both bloodlines.”
I felt Maren’s hand find mine.
“What bloodlines?” she asked.
Helena took one slow step down.
Adrian raised the gun higher.
“The Vale line built the system,” Helena said. “The Bell line can destroy it.”
A loud metallic crash struck the back door.
Maren jumped.
“They’re coming in,” I said.
Adrian grabbed the flash drive.
“There’s a cellar beneath the kitchen.”
“I don’t have a cellar,” Maren replied.
“Yes, you do.”
Another crash.
Wood splintered.
Adrian seized the edge of the kitchen rug and pulled it back, revealing a square metal panel set into the floor.
Maren stared at it in disbelief.
“How did you know?”
“Because I bought this house for Lydia twenty-nine years ago.”
My father entered a code into a hidden keypad.
The metal panel unlocked with a hiss.
I looked at him.
“You knew Maren’s mother before she worked for Celeste.”
“Yes.”
The back door burst inward.
Men shouted.
Adrian pulled open the panel, revealing a narrow staircase descending into darkness.
“Go,” he ordered.
Maren started down first, holding Elias carefully.
I followed.
Adrian remained above us.
“Aren’t you coming?” I asked.
“In a moment.”
Gunfire exploded through the kitchen.
Maren screamed.
Adrian fired twice.
Then he jumped into the passage and dragged the panel shut above us.
Darkness swallowed everything.
A second later, emergency lights flickered on along the underground walls.
The passage was not a cellar.
It was a tunnel.
Old brick stretched ahead beneath the townhouse.
Adrian locked the panel and pushed us forward.
“Where does this lead?” I asked.
“To the river.”
Boots thundered overhead.
Maren struggled to keep pace.
I took Elias from her, cradling him against my chest as we hurried through the tunnel.
Behind us, metal groaned.
They were opening the panel.
Adrian glanced back.
“We don’t have much time.”
The tunnel narrowed, forcing us into a single line.
Maren moved ahead.
I followed with Elias.
My father came behind me.
After nearly a hundred yards, we reached a rusted iron door.
Adrian pressed his palm against a scanner hidden in the wall.
Nothing happened.
He tried again.
A red light flashed.
“Celeste changed the access system,” he muttered.
The sound of the metal panel crashing open echoed from behind us.
Voices entered the tunnel.
Adrian handed me the pistol.
“You remember how to use this?”
“I remember.”
He removed the silver top of his cane.
Inside was a thin metal rod covered with etched symbols.
He inserted it into a narrow slot beside the scanner.
The lock clicked.
The door opened onto a stone chamber.
Inside stood a desk, several old computers, filing cabinets, and a wall covered in photographs.
Adrian shoved us inside and sealed the door.
Maren approached the wall.
Most of the photographs showed my mother.
Celeste entering hotels.
Celeste meeting senators.
Celeste standing beside military officers.
But several photographs showed Maren’s mother.
And in one of them, Lydia Bell was holding a newborn baby.
A baby wrapped in a blue blanket.
Maren touched the photograph.
“That’s me.”
Adrian said nothing.
She looked closer.
Then her face changed.
“No.”
“What is it?” I asked.
She tore the photograph from the wall and turned it over.
A date was written on the back.
The date was eight months before Maren’s birthday.
“That can’t be me,” she whispered.
Adrian closed his eyes.
“Tell her,” I said.
He remained silent.
I lifted the gun.
“Tell her now.”
My father looked at Maren.
“Lydia Bell was not your biological mother.”
Maren staggered backward.
“Then who was?”
Adrian’s face seemed to age before us.
Before he could answer, one of the old computer monitors flickered to life.
Static filled the screen.
Then an image appeared.
My mother sat behind a desk in her mansion, wearing an ivory suit and a string of pearls.
She looked directly into the camera.
“Merry Christmas, Everett.”
My hand tightened around the pistol.
“Celeste,” Adrian whispered.
She smiled.
“I assume by now your father has filled your head with his version of events.”
Maren stepped closer to the monitor.
“Why did you threaten me?”
Celeste’s eyes shifted as though she could see her.
“Because you were carrying something that never should have existed.”
Elias began to cry.
My mother’s expression softened.
“There he is.”
I turned the monitor away from him.
“You’ll never touch my son.”
“Oh, Everett,” she said. “You still don’t understand.”
A warning light flashed above the chamber door.
Someone was cutting through the lock.
Adrian moved toward a second exit at the rear of the room.
My mother continued speaking.
“The child is not the greatest secret Maren has kept from you.”
Maren shook her head.
“I haven’t kept anything.”
Celeste smiled with chilling patience.
“You have. You simply don’t remember.”
Adrian stopped.
For the first time since entering the townhouse, he looked frightened.
“Turn it off,” he said.
“What doesn’t she remember?” I demanded.
“Everett, turn it off.”
Celeste leaned closer to the camera.
“Ask your father who Maren’s biological parents are.”
The cutting sound at the door grew louder.
Sparks appeared around the frame.
Maren looked at Adrian.
“Who were they?”
He said nothing.
“Who were my parents?”
My father’s shoulders fell.
I suddenly understood that whatever answer he was hiding frightened him more than the armed men outside.
Celeste gave a quiet laugh.
“Go on, Adrian. Tell them.”
Maren stepped toward him, tears filling her eyes.
“Tell me.”
Adrian looked at me first.
Then at Maren.
Finally, he looked at the baby in my arms.
“Your mother was Lydia’s younger sister,” he said.
Maren’s lips parted.
“And my father?”
The chamber door buckled inward.
Adrian’s answer came so softly I almost did not hear it.
“I was.”
For one impossible second, nothing moved.
Maren stared at him.
Then she turned slowly toward me.
My father.
Her father.
The same man.
The gun slipped from my hand and struck the stone floor.
On the screen, Celeste smiled.
“Now you understand why the child must never be allowed to live.”
The chamber door exploded inward.
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