Chapter 13 - The hospital archive was hidden beneath St. Vincent.Daniel had spent years looking for it.
Now we finally found it.
Rows of boxes.
Paper records.
Photographs.
Patient logs.
Alexander stayed with Ethan, who had survived the shooting.
Lucas was alive too, recovering in another secured location.
Mia slept under armed protection.
And I stood in a basement beneath the hospital where everything had started.
Daniel handed me a box.
“Your daughter’s original record.”
My hands trembled.
Inside was a birth certificate.
A photograph.
A newborn bracelet.
And a second bracelet.
I stared.
There were two names.
Mia Claire Bennett.
Noah Lucas Sterling.
I looked at Daniel.
“Noah.”
He nodded.
“The son who was supposedly stillborn.”
I felt dizzy.
“Where is he?”
“That’s what we need to find out.”
We opened another file.
The neonatal transfer log.
Two infants entered.
One infant discharged.
One infant listed as deceased.
But the signatures did not match.
Daniel pointed at one name.
“Dr. Evelyn Hart.”
A doctor.
I remembered her.
She had delivered Mia.
“She was involved?”
Daniel shook his head.
“No.”
“Then who?”
A second signature.
The attending physician.
Dr. Samuel Hayes.
I froze.
“Hayes?”
Daniel nodded.
“Chloe’s father.”
My stomach dropped.
He had run the hospital department.
He had access to the files.
He had access to the babies.
And he had disappeared ten years ago.
I looked at the transfer record.
Destination:
PRIVATE ESTATE, UNKNOWN.
No address.
No guardian.
No legal authorization.
My heart pounded.
“Noah was taken.”
“Yes.”
“By whom?”
Daniel turned the page.
There was one fingerprint.
And underneath it, a notation.
TRANSFERRED TO:
C.S.
I stared.
“C.S.”
Alexander entered the room.
“What did you find?”
I handed him the file.
He read it.
His expression hardened.
“Charles Sterling.”
My father.
Again.
But there was more.
A handwritten note was attached.
KEEP THE BOY AWAY FROM THE GIRL.
The girl.
Mia.
The boy.
Noah.
Why separate them?
Daniel opened another envelope.
Inside was a photograph.
Noah at approximately four years old.
Standing next to a young woman.
I recognized the woman.
Chloe.
My blood ran cold.
“She raised him?”
Daniel shook his head.
“She monitored him.”
“Where?”
He pointed toward the background.
A private school.
The Sterling Academy.
My stomach twisted.
Noah had been inside our world the entire time.
Then another photograph.
Noah at ten.
Noah at fifteen.
Noah at twenty.
Always anonymous.
Always watched.
Always within reach.
The final photograph showed Noah standing beside Ethan.
Both men were adults.
Both were looking at the same building.
My home.
I looked at Daniel.
“They know each other.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Daniel found one final document.
A note written by Lucas.
I have two sons.
One was taken.
One was hidden.
Neither knows the whole truth.
I read it twice.
Then once more.
“Ethan and Noah.”
Daniel nodded.
Alexander looked confused.
“Then who inherits the trust?”
Daniel answered:
“Both.”
I stared.
The trust divided Lucas’s shares between his two biological sons.
Mia was not the sole heir.
She was only the proof of Lucas’s lineage.
The realization hit me.
“Then why was everyone trying to get Mia?”
“Because whoever controls the proof controls the entire trust.”
Alexander’s face hardened.
“So they never wanted the shares.”
“No.”
“They wanted all three children.”
Daniel nodded.
“And someone has just taken Noah.”
My phone rang.
A voice answered before I could speak.
It was Noah.
“Mom.”
My heart stopped.
I had never met him.
Yet somehow I knew.
The voice.
The word.
Mom.
“Where are you?”
He whispered:
“Don’t trust Alexander.”
I looked at my husband.
Noah continued.
May you like
“He’s not the man you think he is.”
Then the line went dead.
