Chapter 9 - The DriveWe ran.
Daniel took us to a safe house outside the city.
The flash drive sat on the table between us.
No one touched it for almost an hour.
Finally, June did.
"There are files."
Hundreds.
Medical reports.
Names.
Payments.
Photographs.
Then one folder appeared.
NOAH_BENNETT.
I opened it.
My own name filled the screen.
Medical history.
Employment records.
Bank accounts.
School history.
Photographs.
Someone had been tracking me since I was twenty-seven.
Then I found a document dated eleven days after their mother's death.
It was an agreement.
The title:
GUARDIAN TRANSFER.
My name.
Three girls.
And one condition.
No disclosure of biological parentage.
I stared.
"What does this mean?"
Daniel shook his head.
"It means the girls were intentionally placed with you."
I looked at him.
"Why?"
He opened another file.
There was a photograph of their mother.
Beside her was a doctor I had never seen.
A handwritten note said:
Noah is the only person we can trust.
I froze.
"She chose me?"
Daniel nodded.
"Before her death."
Then I found another recording.
Their mother's voice.
My heart stopped.
"Hello, Noah."
I sat down.
"If you're hearing this, I'm gone."
Her voice trembled.
"I need you to understand something."
A pause.
"I chose you because you were the only person Martin trusted."
She explained that she'd discovered the adoption network.
She knew someone inside the hospital was helping it.
She knew her death was coming.
"And if I die, they'll come for June."
I stared at the screen.
"But not because she's special."
A pause.
"Because she's evidence."
My hands began shaking.
Their mother had hidden something in June's DNA.
A genetic record proving the hospital had altered medical records for years.
June wasn't valuable because of what she could become.
She was valuable because of what she could prove.
Then her mother's voice said something that made all three girls cry.
"I need you to raise them together."
She knew separating them would make them vulnerable.
"I know you'll lose your youth."
"I know you'll hate me."
"But Noah..."
Her voice broke.
"Please give them the childhood I can't."
I shut my eyes.
For twenty-two years, I'd thought I had been abandoned.
I hadn't.
I'd been chosen.
Then the final line appeared.
There is one person in your family who knows everything.
I looked at Daniel.
"Who?"
The screen displayed a name.
My stomach dropped.
EVELYN BENNETT.
My mother.
She had died three years earlier.
I whispered:
"Mom knew."
Then another file unlocked automatically.
A video.
My mother appeared on screen.
She looked directly into the camera.
May you like
And said:
"Martin isn't the father."
