Chapter 14 - The room was silent.Alexander looked at me.
“What did he say?”
I stared at him.
“He called me Mom.”
His face changed.
Daniel stepped closer.
“What else?”
“He told me not to trust you.”
Alexander nodded slowly.
“You believe him?”
“I don’t know.”
That was the worst part.
For the first time since I had met Alexander, doubt entered the room between us.
He saw it.
And it hurt him.
“I have never lied to you.”
I looked at him.
“You knew there were secrets.”
“Yes.”
“You investigated Marcus.”
“Yes.”
“You knew about the trust.”
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t tell me.”
“Because I was trying to protect you.”
“By hiding the truth?”
He said nothing.
I turned away.
Then Daniel spoke.
“There’s something you need to know.”
Alexander looked at him.
“What?”
“Five years ago, before you met Claire, your company made a private payment.”
Alexander frowned.
“To whom?”
“Lucas.”
“No.”
Daniel placed the document on the table.
Alexander read it.
His expression changed.
“This is my signature.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t authorize this.”
“Your digital signature did.”
Alexander stared at the page.
Someone had used his identity.
A payment had been made to a medical facility.
For one purpose.
PROTECTION OF THE CHILD.
Alexander whispered:
“Mia.”
Daniel shook his head.
“No.”
He turned the page.
The beneficiary was Noah.
Alexander looked at me.
“I was protecting Noah without knowing it.”
I swallowed.
“Who used your signature?”
Daniel answered:
“Ethan.”
Silence.
Ethan had been manipulating the company for years.
He had been hiding his identity.
And somehow he had protected Noah.
The pieces shifted.
Ethan wasn’t the final villain.
He might never have been.
He might have been trying to undo what Charles had done.
My phone rang again.
Noah.
This time the call lasted only ten seconds.
“Mom, listen.”
I held my breath.
“There’s a woman here.”
“Who?”
“Chloe.”
I froze.
“That’s impossible. Chloe is dead.”
Noah whispered:
“She isn’t.”
The line cut.
I stared at the phone.
Alexander immediately called security.
We had buried Chloe less than twelve hours ago.
A body had been identified.
Or supposedly.
Daniel looked at me.
“Someone wanted us to believe she was dead.”
We rushed to the morgue.
The body was gone.
The identification file was still there.
DNA results.
Name:
Chloe Hayes.
But a second page was missing.
The doctor responsible for the identification had vanished.
Dr. Samuel Hayes.
Chloe’s father.
I understood.
The whole thing had been staged.
Chloe was alive.
My father had not killed her.
They had faked her death.
For what?
A final trap.
Daniel found a GPS coordinate inside the morgue file.
We followed it to an abandoned church outside the city.
Inside, candles burned.
Noah stood in the center aisle.
Twenty-five years old.
Dark hair.
My eyes.
Lucas’s jaw.
He looked at me.
And for one moment, I saw Mia.
My daughter.
My son.
Two pieces of a family ripped apart before they ever had the chance to know each other.
“Noah,” I whispered.
He smiled through tears.
“Mom.”
I ran to him.
He hugged me.
I cried harder than I had in five years.
“I’m sorry.”
He held me tighter.
“You didn’t know.”
Then a voice echoed from the altar.
“Family reunions are always so emotional.”
Chloe stepped into the light.
Alive.
Smiling.
Holding a gun.
Behind her stood Dr. Samuel Hayes.
And between them was Lucas.
Bound to a chair.
Chloe lifted the gun toward him.
“You have ten seconds.”
She looked at me.
“Choose.”
Lucas.
Noah.
Or Mia.
May you like
Then she smiled.
“Because you only get to save two.”
