Chapter 8 - MARADaniel grabbed Lena and ran.
Gunshots echoed down the corridor.
Glass shattered.
They ducked into an operating room.
Vale stumbled inside behind them.
“Lock the door!”
Daniel shoved a cabinet against it.
“Tell me where Mara is!”
Vale shook his head.
“Not here.”
“Then where?”
“Cross owns half the facilities in this city.”
Lena stared at Vale.
“Why did you protect me?”
Vale looked at her.
“Because your mother begged me.”
“Amira?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
Vale hesitated.
“Sarah.”
Daniel felt something break inside him.
“My wife trusted you?”
“She had no choice.”
Vale pulled a small key from his pocket.
“The records are under the old chapel.”
“What records?”
“The original transfer documents.”
Daniel grabbed the key.
“Why didn't you destroy them?”
“Because one day I knew someone would need proof.”
“Proof of what?”
Vale looked at Lena.
“That the two girls were deliberately separated.”
A crash came from the hallway.
The door began to shake.
Vale pointed toward the rear exit.
“Go.”
Daniel and Lena ran.
They escaped through a basement tunnel leading to an abandoned chapel.
Beneath the altar was a steel door.
The key fit.
Inside were dozens of boxes.
Hospital files.
Police reports.
Bank records.
Photographs.
Daniel pulled one folder.
The first page contained a photograph of Sarah holding two newborn babies.
Daniel stared.
He had never seen it.
Sarah was smiling.
One baby was in each arm.
Under the photograph:
Subject A: Lily Hart.
Subject B: Mara Hart.
Daniel's hands shook.
Then he opened another file.
Payment records.
Crosswell Group.
Marcus Vale.
Amira Rahman.
Multiple shell companies.
And one recurring payment made every month for twenty-eight years.
The recipient was a bank account under the name:
Lena Hart.
Daniel stared.
Lena looked confused.
“I've never had an account.”
A second document explained it.
The account had been used to track her.
Every address.
Every school.
Every doctor.
Every job.
Someone had been monitoring her entire life.
Daniel looked at the last page.
A handwritten note.
Mara is not the dangerous one. Lily is.
Daniel looked at Lena.
“What does that mean?”
Lena's face had gone pale.
“I don't know.”
Daniel turned the page.
A photograph fell out.
It showed two teenage girls.
One was Lena.
The other looked almost identical.
They were standing together.
Same eyes.
Same smile.
Same scar.
Daniel whispered:
“Mara.”
On the back of the photograph was one sentence.
They found each other six years ago.
Lena stared at the photograph.
“I've never seen her.”
Daniel looked at the date.
Six years earlier.
The same year Amira died.
Then he noticed something else.
The woman standing beside them in the photograph wasn't Amira.
It was Sarah.
Daniel's dead wife.
May you like
Still alive.
Six years ago.
