Chapter 6 - The GrandmotherDarkness swallowed the ballroom.
Someone screamed.
Emergency lights flickered on.
Admiral Reed drew his weapon.
“Nobody moves.”
My family obeyed.
I didn't.
I was already heading toward the side corridor.
Reed caught up with me.
“You heard the order.”
“Yes.”
“You're not going alone.”
“She asked for me.”
“She may be baiting you.”
“She may be the only person who knows the truth.”
Reed stared at me.
Then he nodded.
“I'll stay thirty meters behind you.”
We left the ballroom.
The corridor was empty.
Too empty.
I walked through the mansion I had once called home.
Every painting seemed to watch me.
I remembered being twelve.
Fifteen.
Eighteen.
My grandmother had always been cold.
Elegant.
Untouchable.
She had taught me one lesson more clearly than anyone else.
“In this family, Elena, survival belongs to the person who controls the truth.”
I had thought it was advice.
Now I wondered whether it had been a confession.
We reached the old library.
The door was open.
Inside, a single lamp was burning.
An old woman sat beside the fireplace.
Gray hair.
Black dress.
Pearl necklace.
Grandmother.
Alive.
I stopped breathing.
“Hello, Elena.”
My hands curled into fists.
“You're alive.”
“Yes.”
“You let me believe you were dead.”
“Yes.”
“You watched while they erased me.”
She looked at me.
“Yes.”
Anger burned through me.
“Why?”
“Because you had to disappear.”
“You could have helped.”
“I did.”
I laughed.
“You call that helping?”
“If I had protected you publicly, they would have killed you.”
“Who?”
She looked toward Admiral Reed.
“You brought a soldier.”
“He's an admiral.”
“Even worse.”
Reed stepped forward.
“Mrs. Vale.”
She smiled.
“Thomas Reed.”
“You know me?”
“I know everyone who matters.”
She reached beneath the table and removed a small metal case.
“This belongs to you.”
She gave it to me.
I recognized the emblem.
My mother's.
I opened it.
Inside was a flash drive.
And a photograph.
My mother.
Standing beside a younger Richard Vale.
And another man.
I knew him.
Victor Sloane.
But there was someone else.
A woman.
I stared.
“Who is she?”
Grandmother said nothing.
I turned the photograph over.
There was a date.
Twenty-eight years earlier.
And beneath it, one sentence.
Project Helix begins with the bloodline.
I looked at Grandmother.
“What does that mean?”
She closed her eyes.
“Your father wasn't the architect.”
“Then who was?”
“You.”
I frowned.
“What?”
“You are the reason Project Helix survived.”
I stared at her.
She continued.
“Your mother discovered that Helix required a genetic component. She tried to destroy it.”
“What kind of program requires genetics?”
She looked at me.
“A command prediction system.”
My stomach tightened.
“It was designed to predict human behavior.”
“Not simply behavior.”
She lowered her voice.
“Loyalty.”
Fear.
Obedience.
Decision-making under stress.
My mother had discovered the project was being trained using naval personnel.
Then she tried to expose it.
Grandmother leaned forward.
“Your mother died trying.”
I stared.
“My mother died in a car accident.”
“No.”
The word was barely audible.
“She was murdered.”
Everything inside me went cold.
“By whom?”
Grandmother looked at Father through the glass doors.
“Your family.”
My father's voice echoed from the corridor.
“Mother.”
He entered.
He looked destroyed.
Grandmother didn't turn.
“You should have told her years ago.”
Father said nothing.
I faced him.
“You killed Mom?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
He swallowed.
“Helix did.”
“That's not an answer.”
He looked at Grandmother.
She spoke.
“Richard made the mistake of thinking he could control the machine.”
My father closed his eyes.
“He couldn't.”
“What machine?”
Grandmother pointed to the flash drive.
“Everything.”
I looked down at it.
“What happens if I access it?”
She smiled sadly.
“Then everyone who wanted you dead will know you're still alive.”
I looked up.
“That's already happened.”
She shook her head.
“No.”
She leaned closer.
“They know something else.”
“What?”
“You were never supposed to survive the South China Sea.”
I stared at her.
“Why?”
Grandmother's face hardened.
“Because the explosion wasn't meant to kill seventeen sailors.”
She looked directly into my eyes.
“It was designed to kill one person.”
Me.
My chest tightened.
“And now?”
She whispered.
“Now they know you survived.”
The library doors slammed shut.
Something exploded outside.
Grandmother smiled.
“They've arrived.”
“Who?”
Her answer chilled me.
May you like
“The people your father has been afraid of for thirty years.”
Then every window in the mansion shattered at once.
