Chapter 14 - Eight Years EarlierThe memory returned in fragments.
Rain.
A warehouse.
Caroline standing across from me.
My hand holding a gun.
My father behind me.
Adrian beside him.
Caroline was pregnant.
With Lily.
My father told me she was a spy.
I believed him.
I had ordered Caroline eliminated.
Then she revealed the truth.
She had been protecting our child.
My father raised his weapon.
I turned against him.
The fight began.
Someone struck me.
I fell.
When I woke, four years had disappeared.
The official story was that I had retired.
The truth was uglier.
My father had erased portions of my memory using psychological conditioning.
He wanted to control the Architect.
But I escaped.
I built a new identity.
Julian Vance.
Then Caroline found me again.
She chose not to restore my memory.
Because she feared what I would become.
So she stayed.
She watched.
She protected Lily.
And Cynthia infiltrated the family.
The abuse began.
Not because Cynthia hated Lily.
Because she was testing whether my dormant instincts would wake.
The chocolate milk had done what years of manipulation couldn't.
It woke me.
I stared at Caroline.
“You knew I'd eventually remember.”
“Yes.”
“You risked everything.”
“Yes.”
“You let me hate you.”
She whispered:
“Because hatred is safer than trust.”
I looked at Lily.
She was listening.
She had heard everything.
“Daddy?”
I knelt.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For not knowing.”
She touched my face.
“You know now.”
A strange calm settled over me.
Then Thorne entered.
“Sir.”
“What?”
“We found Adrian.”
“Where?”
He handed me a photograph.
A church in Prague.
I stared.
“I’ll go alone.”
Thorne frowned.
“That would be reckless.”
“No.”
I looked at Caroline.
“I've spent four years pretending to be harmless.”
Then at Lily.
“I've spent one day becoming dangerous again.”
May you like
I closed the folder.
“Adrian deserves to see the man he created.”
