Chapter 14 - The Cage Wasn't for NoahThe backyard was empty.
Except for the iron cage.
The door was open.
Inside was a man.
Hands tied.
Face bruised.
Gabriel.
Alive.
Rebecca stopped.
“I killed you.”
Gabriel smiled.
“You tried.”
Detective Harper raised his weapon.
Gabriel laughed.
“You still don't understand.”
I stepped closer.
“Where is the person controlling this?”
Gabriel looked at me.
“Who says there is one?”
“You murdered Lily.”
“I didn't.”
“Vanessa said you did.”
“Vanessa lies.”
Rebecca shouted:
“You threatened my brother!”
Gabriel smiled.
“Your brother doesn't exist.”
She froze.
“What?”
“Your father told you that story so you'd obey.”
Rebecca stared at him.
“You're lying.”
Gabriel looked at me.
“Ask Ethan who his father really was.”
I felt sick.
“My father is dead.”
“Which one?”
Silence.
Gabriel continued.
“Your father had an identical twin.”
I remembered Evan.
Then another truth emerged.
Maybe Evan wasn't my brother.
Maybe he was something else.
A replacement.
A weapon.
A false identity.
Gabriel smiled.
“Your father built the entire system.”
“Why?”
“To protect himself.”
“From whom?”
“From people like you.”
He pointed at me.
“You inherited everything.”
“The company.”
“The money.”
“The evidence.”
“And Lily.”
I clenched my fists.
“You're not making sense.”
“Because you still think this is about your family.”
He looked toward Noah.
“It is about the boy.”
Noah stepped behind me.
“What about him?”
“His mother found a record proving your father bought the silence of dozens of people.”
“Why?”
“Because Noah's birth records contain the missing name.”
I stared.
“My son?”
Gabriel nodded.
“The boy's biological mother wasn't Lily.”
The world went silent.
“No.”
“She adopted him.”
I shook my head.
“Lily gave birth to Noah.”
Gabriel smiled.
“Ask the hospital.”
I remembered.
The hospital records.
Lily had given birth during a snowstorm.
I'd been there.
Or had I?
I suddenly remembered something strange.
The delivery room.
A nurse pushing me outside.
A curtain.
A sealed file.
Lily holding Noah.
Could it have been staged?
I grabbed Gabriel.
“Where is the truth?”
He whispered:
“In the one file Lily never showed you.”
“What file?”
He smiled.
“Your marriage certificate.”
I stared at him.
“What does that have to do with Noah?”
“Everything.”
A gunshot cracked.
Gabriel fell.
Rebecca screamed.
But no one in the yard had fired.
Then the garden lights went out.
Noah grabbed my hand.
“Daddy.”
I pulled him close.
A voice came through the darkness.
“Ethan.”
Lily's voice.
Impossible.
My wife was dead.
Yet her voice was coming through the speakers.
“You finally found it.”
I froze.
The voice continued.
“I knew you'd come.”
The lights turned on.
A screen appeared on the house wall.
Lily.
Alive.
Standing in a room I had never seen.
She looked directly at me.
“Ethan…”
I whispered:
“Lily?”
May you like
She smiled sadly.
“I never died.”
