Chapter 10 - The Engagement Was Never About MarriageCharles Cartwright didn't fire.
He didn't need to.
Six armed men appeared behind him.
My father raised his hands.
Mara pulled the boys close.
Zero stood very still.
Charles looked at me as if we were discussing a business contract.
"You were supposed to announce the engagement tonight."
"You've been watching me."
"For years."
"Why?"
"Because your marriage to Brielle was the final piece."
"What piece?"
Charles smiled.
"Control."
I laughed.
"You think marriage controls me?"
"No."
He looked toward the boys.
"It gives us legitimacy."
Mara's face changed.
"What are you saying?"
Charles walked toward the observation window.
"The Whitaker family had technology."
"The Cartwrights had political access."
"You had the bloodline."
"And the children had the inheritance."
I understood.
"The wedding."
"The merger."
"The conservatory."
"It was never a wedding."
Charles smiled.
"It was a transfer."
My father looked terrified.
"Charles, you don't understand what you're doing."
Charles turned.
"I understand perfectly."
He pressed a button.
Every screen showed the same image.
Mara six years earlier.
Pregnant.
Then the birth.
Then four newborn boys.
Then me.
Standing beside the incubators.
I stared.
"I wasn't there."
"You were."
Charles zoomed in.
My childhood face appeared on screen.
I was six.
Not twenty-six.
Six.
Impossible.
A second image appeared.
Me as a child, standing beside Zero.
Then another.
Me at ten.
Me at fourteen.
I had been in the facility all along.
The memories had been removed.
Charles walked toward me.
"Your family didn't merely experiment on children."
He lowered his voice.
"They experimented on you."
My head spun.
Mara grabbed my hand.
"Alexander."
I looked at her.
"Did you know?"
Tears filled her eyes.
"I knew they took you."
"When?"
"When you were six."
I couldn't breathe.
"You disappeared too."
"Your mother found you."
"Why did she never tell me?"
"Because she was threatened."
By whom?
I already knew.
My grandfather.
Charles smiled.
"Now you understand why the marriage mattered."
I stared at him.
"You wanted my memories."
"No."
He corrected me.
"We wanted your access."
"Access to what?"
"To the Echo network."
My father shook his head.
"You can't control it."
Charles laughed.
"We don't need to."
He handed me a tablet.
On it was a contract.
My name.
My signature.
A biometric transfer agreement.
Dated six years ago.
I had never seen it.
But the signature was mine.
"What is this?"
"You signed it before your memory was altered."
My stomach dropped.
"I was twenty-six."
"You were twenty."
The date was wrong.
Mara whispered:
"They lied about your age."
"What?"
I stared at her.
"How old am I?"
"Twenty-six."
She hesitated.
"You were twenty when you disappeared."
Everything inside me broke.
My memories.
My past.
My relationship with Mara.
The engagement.
All of it.
Someone had rewritten my life.
Then one of the boys screamed.
Micah.
He was clutching his head.
"I remember."
I ran toward him.
"What?"
He looked at me.
His eyes were full of terror.
"I remember the fire."
"What fire?"
He pointed at the screen.
"I remember the night they burned the old laboratory."
My grandfather's voice came through the speakers.
"You shouldn't have remembered that."
Micah suddenly said:
"Grandpa didn't burn it."
Everyone froze.
"Then who did?"
Micah pointed directly at Brielle's father.
Charles went pale.
Micah whispered:
"Your daughter."
May you like
Charles's expression changed.
"Brielle was there."
