Chapter 6 - The Man Without a NameThe photograph wouldn't leave my mind.
Stephanie sitting in a gray room.
Professor Lennox beside her.
And the faceless man standing behind them.
My father knew him.
My mother knew him.
My grandmother had written about him.
Everyone seemed to know something except me.
“Who is he?”
My father closed his eyes.
“I don't know his real name.”
“Then what do you call him?”
“Mr. Black.”
I almost laughed.
“That's ridiculous.”
“He used different names.”
“Who?”
“Executives. Donors. Consultants.”
“So he's nobody.”
My father looked at me.
“No.”
“He's everybody.”
That night, Eleanor brought me to a private office.
There were no windows.
No computers connected to the internet.
Only paper files.
She opened a folder.
Inside were dozens of photographs.
Mr. Black appeared in almost every one.
Different suits.
Different hair.
Different names.
Same eyes.
“We think he's a contractor.”
“For Meridian?”
“Meridian doesn't officially exist.”
“Then why are people afraid of it?”
“Because unofficial things can be harder to destroy.”
I studied the photographs.
Then I noticed one.
Mr. Black standing beside a younger woman.
My mother.
I went cold.
“She knew him.”
Eleanor nodded.
“She worked with him.”
“For how long?”
“Three years.”
I stood.
“My mother helped him?”
“She was sixteen when they first approached her.”
I froze.
“What?”
“They identified her as a scholarship candidate.”
My mother had been recruited when she was young.
Just like the notebook described.
She had been trained.
Positioned.
Then married my father.
Then had me.
I suddenly understood why my childhood had always felt strange.
Rules I didn't understand.
Questions I wasn't allowed to ask.
People who appeared at family events and disappeared without explanation.
My father said quietly:
“You were never supposed to attend that university.”
“Why?”
“Because your grandmother broke the agreement.”
“What agreement?”
He looked at me.
“She refused to hand you over.”
I stared at him.
“What does hand me over mean?”
Before he could answer, the office phone rang.
Eleanor picked it up.
Her expression changed.
“Where?”
She hung up.
“Stephanie was found.”
My heart jumped.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Police hospital.”
We arrived thirty minutes later.
Stephanie was unconscious.
Bruises covered her face.
Her wrist was fractured.
A nurse told us she had been found outside a parking structure.
There was no witness.
No footage.
No evidence.
Except one thing.
A folded note in her hand.
I opened it.
ASK EMILY ABOUT THE NIGHT SHE WAS BORN.
My father stepped backward.
I looked at him.
“Dad?”
He looked devastated.
“What happened the night I was born?”
He sat down.
“Your grandmother disappeared.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“She left the hospital after seeing you.”
“Why?”
“She said someone was coming.”
“Who?”
He shook his head.
“She wouldn't tell us.”
I looked at my mother.
She had arrived behind us.
She was crying.
“Mom.”
She covered her face.
“Tell me.”
She didn't.
“Tell me!”
She finally whispered:
“You weren't supposed to survive.”
The hallway became silent.
I stared at her.
“What?”
“There was a complication.”
“No.”
“You were born premature.”
“That isn't what you mean.”
She broke down.
“I mean they expected you to die.”
My stomach turned.
“Who?”
“The people who believed you belonged to them.”
Eleanor closed the hospital-room door.
Then she said:
“There is more.”
She showed me a medical record.
My birth.
The official record had been altered.
The original file was missing.
But one line remained.
GENETIC MARKER: MATCH CONFIRMED.
I stared.
“Match to whom?”
Eleanor shook her head.
“We don't know.”
“That isn't possible.”
“It is if someone had access to the original database.”
My father's face turned white.
“Emily.”
I turned.
He was staring at the hallway.
Someone stood at the far end.
A man in a dark coat.
Watching us.
“Is that him?”
My father whispered:
“Yes.”
Mr. Black.
I ran.
He disappeared around the corner.
Security officers chased him.
A door slammed.
Then came the sound of glass breaking.
I reached the emergency exit.
Empty.
On the floor was a small black envelope.
Inside was a single sentence.
YOUR SISTER WAS NEVER THE TARGET.
I read it twice.
Then beneath it was another line.
YOU WERE.
My phone buzzed.
A video message.
Stephanie.
Recorded before her attack.
She stared into the camera.
“Emily, if you're watching this, I'm probably gone.”
She looked terrified.
“But there's something you need to know.”
She took a breath.
“Lennox didn't recruit me.”
“He recruited Dad.”
The video ended.
I slowly turned toward my father.
May you like
He was crying.
And for the first time, he didn't deny anything.
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