Chapter 10 - The next file changed everything.R-17 was not a room.

It was a designation for a family member selected for replacement.

My father explained the system like a scientist discussing weather.

Every generation of the Vale family had produced one heir.

One public heir.

One hidden heir.

One could inherit.

The other could disappear.

The hidden heir was trained to act as a perfect duplicate.

Voice.

Mannerisms.

Handwriting.

Memories.

But nobody had expected Elena to discover the process.

She had.

Then she tried to destroy it.

I looked at my twin.

“What is your name?”

He hesitated.

“Adrian.”

“No.”

He stared at me.

“You don't get to have my name.”

He smiled.

“My name was erased before you learned yours.”

Victor interrupted.

“His name was Aaron.”

I looked at him.

“Aaron.”

The man flinched.

Nobody had called him that in years.

Lily looked up.

“Aaron.”

He froze.

Something changed in his face.

Not anger.

Pain.

My daughter had remembered him.

And that frightened him more than my gun.

I asked Elena:

“Why did you fake your death?”

“Because Aaron was going to replace you.”

“When?”

“At your father's funeral.”

My father looked away.

Elena continued.

“Your mother helped me escape.”

“Then why did she help him?”

“She didn't.”

My mother stepped from behind a steel wall.

Alive.

Burned on one sleeve.

But alive.

She looked at me.

“Your father had a second plan.”

She handed me a folder.

Inside was a legal document dated fifteen years earlier.

A trust.

My mother's name.

My father's name.

And Elena's.

At the bottom was a clause.

If Adrian Vale dies before age forty, Aaron Vale inherits all assets and guardianship of the children.

I looked at the date.

I had turned forty one year earlier.

My father smiled.

“That was why tonight had to happen.”

“You wanted me dead.”

“No.”

He looked toward Aaron.

“I wanted you replaced.”

My mother stepped closer.

“That is why Elena disappeared.”

I stared at her.

“Mom, why didn't you tell me?”

“Because your father had men everywhere.”

“And Marco?”

She nodded.

“Marco worked for him.”

I suddenly understood.

The white shirts.

The kitchen door.

The hidden alarm.

The metal fragment.

R-17.

Everything had been staged to force me underground.

I looked at Claire.

“You were part of this too?”

She shook her head.

“I was part of Elena's plan.”

“What plan?”

“To make Lily speak.”

I frowned.

Claire looked at Lily.

“She was never unable to speak.”

Silence.

“She was afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

Claire swallowed.

“Of saying the name.”

“Whose name?”

Lily looked straight at my father.

“Grandpa.”

My father slowly smiled.

“Yes.”

At that instant, an alarm screamed.

Marco's voice came through the speakers.

“Ten men in the north tunnel.”

My father looked surprised.

“Who?”

Marco answered.

“I don't know.”

Elena grabbed my arm.

“There shouldn't be anyone else.”

The lights flickered.

A camera activated.

The north tunnel filled with armed men.

Their shirts were not white.

They were black.

And they were moving directly toward us.

Victor's face changed.

“That's not Father's team.”

“Then whose?”

He looked at me.

“Elena.”

She shook her head.

“I didn't call them.”

A man stepped into the camera frame.

He removed his mask.

I recognized him immediately.

He was the detective who had investigated Elena's death.

The man who had told me her crash was an accident.

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He smiled at the camera.

“Hello, Adrian.”