Chapter 15 - The Real HeirLily stared at Victor.
“What?”
Victor’s expression was haunted.
“The memory they erased from me…”
He swallowed.
“Ethan was there.”
Lily shook her head.
“He was a baby.”
“I know.”
“Then how could he be involved?”
Victor stared at the camera.
“Because the child they brought home wasn’t Ethan.”
Silence.
Lily’s face went blank.
“What are you saying?”
Victor remembered everything.
The night Ethan was born.
The second baby.
The emergency.
The switching of hospital records.
His father had taken the real Ethan.
Then replaced him.
The child Victor had raised for six years was part of Project Eve.
A controlled heir.
A child engineered to obey.
Lily covered her mouth.
“No.”
Victor nodded.
“And the real Ethan is still alive.”
His father smiled.
“You finally remember.”
Victor looked up.
“Where is my son?”
His father laughed.
“Which one?”
Victor pulled against the restraints.
“I will find him.”
“No.”
The old man stepped closer.
“You won’t.”
Lily suddenly lunged toward the camera controls.
She activated the microphone.
The hidden chamber began broadcasting.
The entire conversation went live.
Victor’s father froze.
Lily smiled.
“You forgot one thing.”
He stared.
“What?”
“I’m a journalist.”
He looked stunned.
Lily’s phone was streaming.
Millions could hear him.
His crimes.
His confessions.
Every secret.
Security sirens approached from outside.
The old man grabbed Lily.
Victor kicked the chair over.
The restraints snapped against the metal edge.
Victor charged.
They crashed into the floor.
His father pulled a knife.
Victor caught his wrist.
For years, he had been fighting shadows.
Now the shadow had a face.
He looked into his father’s eyes.
“You took everything from my family.”
His father smiled.
“And you still don’t know the worst part.”
Victor froze.
“What?”
His father whispered:
“Ethan is not the final heir.”
Victor’s heart stopped.
“Then who is?”
The old man looked toward Lily.
Victor turned.
Lily had gone pale.
A door opened behind her.
A young man stepped into the chamber.
He looked around twenty years old.
Same eyes.
Same face.
Same blood.
Victor stared.
The young man smiled.
“Hello, Victor.”
Lily whispered:
“Who are you?”
He answered:
“The first heir.”
Victor’s father laughed.
“You thought Ethan was the beginning.”
The young man stepped closer.
“He was the decoy.”
Victor stared at him.
“Where is my son?”
The young man smiled.
“In a place you’ve never searched.”
Victor took a step forward.
“Where?”
He leaned closer.
“Inside the mansion.”
Victor looked toward the destroyed estate.
“That’s impossible.”
The young man shook his head.
“No.”
He held up another gold key.
“It’s just not your mansion.”
Victor’s face changed.
The young man continued:
“Your father didn’t build the mansion.”
“Who did?”
The stranger smiled.
“Ethan’s real father.”
Victor went completely still.
Lily looked at him.
“Victor…”
The young man reached into his coat and pulled out a photograph.
It showed Ethan as a baby.
Standing beside a man Victor had never seen before.
But there was something strange about the photograph.
On the back was a date.
A date from before Victor had even met Evelyn.
Victor turned the photograph over.
Underneath the date were six words:
YOUR SON WAS BORN TEN YEARS EARLIER.
Victor stared.
Then the mansion lights came back on.
One by one.
Despite the fact that the mansion was supposed to be destroyed.
Every window illuminated.
The front doors slowly opened.
And a little boy stepped outside.
Ethan.
Alive.
Smiling.
Victor ran toward him.
But Ethan did not run to his father.
He stood perfectly still.
Then he spoke in a voice far too calm for a six-year-old.
“Daddy.”
Victor stopped.
Ethan smiled.
“I finally remembered who I am.”
Behind him, dozens of figures appeared in the mansion windows.
Victor looked at Lily.
Lily whispered:
“How many people are in there?”
Ethan’s smile widened.
“Enough.”
The golden key in Victor’s hand suddenly began to glow beneath the moonlight.
And from somewhere deep inside the mansion came three slow knocks.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Victor looked at the house.
The same signal.
The same sound.
The sound that had begun the nightmare.
Only now, he understood what it meant.
May you like
Someone had been waiting for him.
And they had finally opened the door.
