## CHAPTER 20 — THE GIRL BENEATH THE ESTATE
Noah described hearing Lily through the walls.
She spoke to him at night using the ventilation system.
Vanessa told him the voice was imaginary.
When he answered Lily, Vanessa punished him.
“Why didn’t Lily appear on the cameras?” Hale asked.
Noah shrugged.
“She said cameras couldn’t see her room.”
The original mansion plans showed a lower level beneath the east-wing facility.
It had been omitted from every modern blueprint.
The entrance was hidden beneath the red room.
Officers removed the flooring and discovered an elevator.
The control panel required the silver key Evelyn had taken from Elena.
A technician bypassed the lock.
The elevator descended four floors.
The underground level was enormous.
Rows of empty bedrooms lined the corridor.
Each door displayed a number.
N-1.
N-2.
N-3.
The numbers continued to N-12.
Noah’s room was N-7.
Subject N had not meant Noah.
It had meant the seventh child in a series.
The facility appeared recently abandoned.
Food remained in a refrigerator.
Beds were unmade.
A television was still warm.
In room N-9, they found a girl’s drawings.
The name Lily appeared on nearly every page.
One drawing showed Claire and Lily holding hands.
Another showed Evelyn standing beside a train.
On the back, Lily had written:
Evelyn says Mommy Claire chose Noah instead of me.
Logan felt a chill.
“Who is Lily?”
Edmund had followed them underground.
He read the message and closed his eyes.
“You knew,” Logan said.
Edmund did not deny it.
“Lily was born at Facility Seven.”
“To whom?”
“That is complicated.”
“Make it simple.”
Edmund looked toward the numbered rooms.
“Claire believed Lily was another patient. She began caring for her during captivity.”
“But who are her parents?”
Before Edmund could answer, the facility speakers activated.
A young girl’s voice filled the corridor.
“Mr. Mercer?”
Logan looked up.
“Lily?”
“I’m sorry Noah called Marina Mommy.”
“Where are you?”
“Evelyn says I can come home now.”
“What home?”
The voice began to cry.
“Your home.”
A screen turned on at the end of the hallway.
It displayed a live image of Lily sitting inside a moving vehicle.
Beside her sat Claire.
Claire was alive.
And she was holding a gun.
---
## CHAPTER 21 — CLAIRE’S COMMAND
Claire looked older.
Her face carried scars Logan had never seen.
But it was her.
There was no doubt.
She stared into the camera with exhausted eyes.
“Logan, do not follow us.”
“Claire.”
Her expression broke for half a second.
Then she looked away.
“I need you to protect Noah.”
“I’m bringing you home.”
“No.”
“Evelyn is using you.”
Claire glanced toward someone outside the frame.
“She isn’t the only one.”
Lily moved closer to her.
The girl appeared to be nine or ten years old.
Her hair was dark like Claire’s.
Her eyes looked painfully familiar.
“Who is Lily?” Logan asked.
Claire tightened her grip on the gun.
“Ask your father.”
Edmund stood behind Logan.
Claire saw him on the facility camera.
Her face hardened.
“You should have died in that fire.”
Edmund stepped forward.
“Claire, listen to me.”
“You lost the right to say my name.”
The video began breaking apart.
Logan moved closer to the screen.
“Where are you?”
Claire looked directly at him.
“Do you remember what you promised me at the lake?”
Fragments returned.
Claire’s hand inside his.
Blood on the floor.
Logan promising to expose his father.
Then Edmund’s men entering the room.
“I remember trying to protect you.”
“Then protect Noah now.”
“From Evelyn?”
Claire’s eyes filled with fear.
“From me.”
The connection ended.
Logan stood frozen.
Noah reached for his hand.
For once, the boy chose him without hesitation.
“Mommy Claire is scared,” Noah said.
“Of what?”
“Of becoming like the other lady.”
Edmund attempted to leave the underground facility.
Hale stopped him.
“You’re not going anywhere until you explain Lily.”
Edmund looked at Logan.
“Lily was created from embryos Claire believed had been destroyed.”
Logan stared at him.
“What are you saying?”
“The embryos belonged to you and Claire.”
Noah tightened his grip.
Edmund continued.
“Lily is your daughter.”
Logan felt the world tilt.
He had a daughter.
She had spent her entire life beneath the estate.
And Claire had just warned him to protect Noah from her.
A phone began ringing inside room N-9.
Logan answered.
Evelyn’s voice came through.
“You have one hour to decide which child comes home.”
---
## CHAPTER 22 — THE CHOICE
Evelyn’s demand was simple.
Logan could choose Noah or Lily.
If he chose Noah, Lily would disappear with Claire.
If he chose Lily, Evelyn would release Claire and the girl—but Noah had to be surrendered to the Board.
“There is no choice,” Logan said.
“There is always a choice,” Evelyn replied. “That was the purpose of Father’s research.”
“You’re hurting children to prove a theory.”
“I’m showing you what powerful people become when love is divided.”
“I will find you.”
“You already found me once.”
Logan heard a smile in her voice.
“At the lake.”
The call ended.
Hale mobilized teams to track the vehicle carrying Claire and Lily.
Elena searched the underground computers.
Most records had been erased.
One directory remained locked.
The password hint read: THE CHILD LOGAN CHOSE FIRST.
Logan entered NOAH.
Incorrect.
He entered CLAIRE.
Incorrect.
Elena looked at him.
“What happened at the lake before Edmund drugged you?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Try.”
Logan closed his eyes.
He remembered Claire shouting that a child was trapped in the boathouse.
He remembered running outside.
Not for Claire.
For someone else.
A little girl stood near the edge of the dock.
She wore a red coat.
Logan pulled her away moments before part of the structure collapsed.
“What was her name?” Elena asked.
Logan stared at the screen.
“Evelyn.”
He entered the name.
The directory opened.
Inside were thousands of psychological profiles.
Judges.
Senators.
Corporate executives.
Military officers.
Journalists.
The Board had collected private fears, medical vulnerabilities, family secrets, and pressure points for decades.
Facility Seven had never been only about children.
The children were used to perfect the methods later applied to adults.
At the center of the network was a file labeled LOGAN MERCER—SUCCESSOR.
Edmund had not been preparing to remove him.
He had been preparing Logan to take control.
A live tracker suddenly appeared on the screen.
Claire’s vehicle was heading toward Washington, D.C.
Near the tracker was a countdown.
Fifty-two minutes remaining.
Hale ordered federal agents to intercept.
Then Elena found another file.
It had been uploaded less than ten minutes earlier.
A video showed Marina—Elena herself—entering Noah’s room and injecting him while he slept.
Elena stared at the footage.
“That never happened.”
Logan wanted to believe her.
Then the video angle changed.
A clear image of her face appeared.
No disguise.
No visible manipulation.
And the timestamp showed the recording had been made the previous night.
---
## CHAPTER 23 — THE WOMAN WITH ELENA’S FACE
Elena had been under police observation the previous night.
She could not have entered Noah’s room.
Yet the video appeared authentic.
Hale’s forensic team examined it.
“No obvious edits,” the technician said. “No generated frames. No facial replacement.”
“Then how?” Logan asked.
Elena watched the recording repeatedly.
Finally, she paused on the woman’s left hand.
“She doesn’t have my scar.”
Elena showed them a thin line across her palm from a childhood injury.
The woman in the video had identical features but no scar.
A twin.
Another hidden child.
Edmund refused to explain.
Elena grabbed his coat.
“How many daughters did Rafael Marquez have?”
Edmund looked at her with visible regret.
“Two.”
Elena released him.
“My mother never told me.”
“She may not have known both survived.”
The second girl had been raised inside Facility Seven.
Her name was Sofia.
She became one of Evelyn’s most loyal operatives.
She had spent years studying Elena’s movements, voice, and behavior.
Vanessa had called her Claire’s replacement because Sofia had sometimes impersonated Claire from a distance.
Sofia was the woman in the blue coat.
She was also the person who had taken Noah from the estate.
“Why frame Elena now?” Logan asked.
“To destroy the only person Noah trusts,” Edmund said. “Isolation increases compliance.”
Logan looked toward his son.
Noah was listening.
Logan knelt beside him.
“Elena didn’t hurt you.”
“I know.”
“How?”
Noah pointed at the video.
“That lady doesn’t blink like Marina.”
The tracking signal from Claire’s vehicle suddenly divided into six identical signals.
Evelyn had created decoys.
Hale’s teams could not identify the real vehicle.
The countdown reached twenty minutes.
Then Vanessa called from the hospital.
“I know where she’s going,” she said.
“Where?”
“The Mercer Foundation building.”
It was hosting a private dinner for more than eighty political donors and corporate leaders.
Many appeared in the Board’s files.
“What is Evelyn planning?”
“To release everything.”
“That would destroy the Board.”
Vanessa gave a weak laugh.
“She doesn’t want to destroy it.”
“She wants to show every person in that building that she owns them.”
Logan heard an alarm in the background.
“Vanessa?”
Her voice dropped.
“She sent Sofia for me.”
A woman spoke behind Vanessa.
“Hello, Logan.”
It was Elena’s voice.
Then the line went dead.
---
## CHAPTER 24 — THE FOUNDATION DINNER
The Mercer Foundation building was evacuated before Logan arrived.
Guests spilled onto the street under federal guard.
Some were furious.
Others were terrified.
The Board files had already begun appearing on the ballroom screens.
Private affairs.
Hidden financial accounts.
Medical diagnoses.
Recorded conversations.
Every guest saw a different secret.
Evelyn controlled the room without being present.
Claire and Lily were found on the building’s rooftop.
Claire still held the gun.
Lily stood behind her.
Federal agents surrounded them.
Logan stepped through the line.
“Claire.”
She turned.
For six years, he had imagined this moment.
He had expected to run to her.
Hold her.
Demand answers.
Instead, they stood twenty feet apart like strangers.
“Put the gun down,” he said.
“I can’t.”
“Evelyn isn’t here.”
Claire looked toward Lily.
“Yes, she is.”
Lily’s expression changed.
The frightened child disappeared.
She calmly reached into her coat and removed a small remote.
Logan froze.
“Lily?”
The girl smiled.
“Evelyn said you would choose Noah.”
Claire’s hands shook.
“She has an explosive device.”
The remote was connected to charges beneath the ballroom.
“Give it to me,” Logan said.
Lily shook her head.
“You left me underground.”
“I didn’t know you existed.”
“That’s what everyone says when they don’t choose you.”
Claire lowered the gun.
She stepped between Lily and the edge of the roof.
“Sweetheart, listen to me.”
“You lied too.”
“I was trying to keep you alive.”
“You loved Noah more.”
Lily pressed her thumb against the button.
Logan spoke quickly.
“I came here for you.”
“You came because of the people downstairs.”
“I came because you’re my daughter.”
Lily’s eyes filled with tears.
For a moment, she looked like the child she was.
Then a gunshot echoed.
The remote flew from her hand.
Lily collapsed.
Claire screamed.
The shot had come from a neighboring rooftop.
A sniper disappeared behind the ledge.
Logan reached Lily.
The bullet had struck her shoulder.
She was alive.
Claire grabbed the remote.
The countdown showed fifteen seconds.
She entered a code.
The timer stopped at two.
Then every screen in the ballroom displayed one final message.
NUMBER ZERO HAS RETURNED.
Edmund Mercer had disappeared from police custody.
---
## CHAPTER 25 — THE MISSING PATRIARCH
Edmund escaped during the rooftop crisis.
A federal transport vehicle carried him away using valid security codes.
The officers escorting him remembered receiving direct orders from Detective Hale.
Hale had issued no such orders.
Sofia could copy faces and voices.
But she could not create federal authorization codes.
Someone inside the government was working with the Board.
Lily underwent surgery.
The bullet passed through without striking major arteries.
Claire remained beside her hospital bed under guard.
Logan waited outside the room.
When Claire finally came into the hallway, neither of them spoke for several seconds.
Then Logan said, “I’m sorry.”
Claire looked exhausted.
“For which part?”
“For not seeing what was happening.”
“You were drugged.”
“I still left you alone.”
“We both made mistakes before the lake.”
“Did you know Lily was ours?”
“Not at first.”
Claire explained that Edmund had used one of their frozen embryos without consent.
Lily was carried by a surrogate connected to Facility Seven.
After birth, she became part of the research program.
Claire discovered her years later and tried to protect her.
Evelyn turned Lily’s loneliness into resentment.
“Why did you say Noah needed protection from you?” Logan asked.
Claire pulled up her sleeve.
A small device had been implanted beneath her skin.
“They conditioned me too.”
“To do what?”
“I don’t know.”
She sometimes lost hours.
She awakened in unfamiliar places.
She remembered holding weapons she had never picked up.
Evelyn had built triggers into her memory.
Certain sounds.
Certain phrases.
Perhaps certain faces.
“I can’t be near Noah until we understand them,” Claire said.
Elena arrived at the hospital.
The sisters embraced for the first time in six years.
Then Elena quietly told Claire about Sofia.
Claire’s face went pale.
“Sofia was never loyal to Evelyn.”
“Then who does she serve?” Logan asked.
Claire looked toward Lily’s room.
“Rafael.”
“Elena’s father is dead.”
“That’s what Edmund wanted everyone to believe.”
A nurse rushed from Lily’s room.
“The patient is gone.”
The window was open.
The guard lay unconscious.
On the empty bed was a silver lion ring and a handwritten message.
DADDY CHOSE TOO LATE.
---
## CHAPTER 26 — THE FALSE DEATH
Rafael Marquez had died in the east-wing fire seventeen years earlier.
Dental records confirmed his identity.
Logan no longer trusted dental records.
Hale reopened the case.
The body identified as Rafael had been cremated within twenty-four hours.
Edmund authorized the procedure.
The official investigator later received a large payment from a Mercer shell company.
Rafael had survived.
And according to Claire, he had become the true architect behind the modern Board.
Edmund created the research.
Rafael weaponized it.
“He believed fear could prevent violence,” Claire said. “If you understood what someone feared most, you could stop them before they acted.”
“What changed?” Logan asked.
“Power.”
Rafael began selling psychological leverage to governments and corporations.
Edmund tried to shut the program down.
Rafael staged his death and continued operating through hidden facilities.
Evelyn believed she had taken control.
In reality, Rafael had been guiding her.
“What does he want with Lily?” Elena asked.
Claire looked at her sister.
“He raised Sofia. He may believe Lily can replace her.”
A hospital security camera showed Lily walking calmly through the lobby beside a gray-haired man with a silver cane.
The image was too blurred to identify his face.
No one stopped them.
Lily appeared willing to leave.
Logan returned to Noah.
The boy had been moved to a protected federal residence.
He was sitting beside Marina—Elena—when Logan entered.
Noah looked disappointed that Claire was not with him.
“She isn’t ready yet,” Logan explained.
“Is she sick?”
“She’s been hurt for a long time.”
“Can Marina fix her?”
Elena looked away.
Noah opened his music box.
For the first time, it played music.
The hidden compartment had changed after the silver key was removed.
A tiny paper strip emerged from beneath the mechanism.
It contained numbers.
Elena recognized them as coordinates.
The location was in New Mexico.
A decommissioned military testing site.
Hale searched the database.
Mercer Medical Research had leased underground space there for twenty-three years.
Facility One.
The original site.
Before they could arrange a raid, Claire collapsed in the hallway.
Her body convulsed.
She repeated the same words over and over.
“Bring Subject N home.”
Then she opened her eyes.
Her expression was cold and unfamiliar.
She looked directly at Noah.
“Hello, Seven.”
Noah backed away.
Claire smiled.
“Number One has been waiting for you.”
---
## CHAPTER 27 — THE TRIGGER
Doctors sedated Claire.
When she woke, she remembered nothing.
She had no memory of calling Noah “Seven.”
No memory of trying to reach him.
No memory of the hidden blade found inside her sleeve.
The trigger had activated a second identity.
One designed to obey commands.
Logan refused to leave her side.
Claire begged him to lock her away.
“I could have hurt him.”
“You didn’t.”
“I wanted to.”
“That wasn’t you.”
“It felt like me.”
Dr. Keller examined the implant in Claire’s arm.
It transmitted no signal.
The trigger had been activated through sound.
Someone inside the hospital played a specific sequence through the intercom.
Security records showed no unusual announcement.
Then Noah remembered hearing music.
Claire’s lullaby.
Played backward.
The hospital intercom technician had disappeared.
His employment records were fake.
Evelyn contacted them from an unknown location.
She appeared on a video screen beside Lily.
The girl’s shoulder had been bandaged.
Rafael was not visible.
“You were right,” Evelyn told Logan. “Father is not in control.”
“Where is Lily?”
“With the only man who never lied to her.”
“Rafael used all of you.”
“He saved us from Edmund.”
“He turned you into weapons.”
Evelyn’s expression hardened.
“So did your father.”
“My father is a criminal.”
“And yet you believed him before you believed Claire.”
Logan had no defense.
Evelyn told them Rafael was preparing to activate the entire Board network.
Thousands of embedded agents, compromised officials, and conditioned subjects would receive instructions simultaneously.
“Why are you telling me?” Logan asked.
“Because Rafael has Sofia.”
Elena stepped toward the screen.
“Where?”
“Facility One.”
Evelyn looked directly at her.
“He plans to force you to choose which twin survives.”
The video ended.
Hale prepared a joint federal operation in New Mexico.
Edmund remained missing.
Vanessa had also vanished from the hospital.
The guard outside her room had been found alive but drugged.
On the wall, Sofia had written:
SISTERS SHOULD NEVER TRUST THEIR FATHERS.
Before Logan left for New Mexico, Noah handed him the music box.
“You need this.”
“Why?”
“There’s another key inside.”
Logan examined it.
No second key was visible.
Noah turned the silver moon on the lid.
A small black key dropped into Logan’s palm.
On one side was engraved FACILITY ONE.
On the other was a single word.
LOGAN.
---
## CHAPTER 28 — FACILITY ONE
Facility One lay beneath miles of desert.
The surface buildings had been abandoned.
The underground systems remained active.
Logan, Hale, Elena, and the federal team entered through a military access tunnel.
The black key opened every secured door.
It had been created specifically for Logan.
As they descended, screens activated along the walls.
They displayed recordings from his childhood.
Logan at five.
Logan at ten.
Logan at sixteen.
He had been monitored long before Claire entered his life.
Edmund had raised him as a successor to the Board.
His education, friendships, failures, and relationships had been influenced.
Even his first meeting with Claire had been arranged.
“I thought it was an accident,” Logan said.
Elena looked at him.
“None of us met by accident.”
They reached a circular control room.
Twelve chairs surrounded a central table.
Eleven were empty.
Rafael Marquez sat in the twelfth.
He appeared older than the hospital footage but strong.
Lily stood beside him.
Sofia was restrained against the wall.
Edmund knelt near the control panel, his hands bound.
Vanessa sat on the floor with blood on her collar.
Evelyn was nowhere in sight.
Rafael smiled at Elena.
“My daughter.”
“I’m not your daughter.”
“You came all this way to find me.”
“I came for Lily and Sofia.”
Rafael looked pleased.
“You still protect people before protecting yourself. That trait survived.”
Logan stepped forward.
“Release them.”
“You always sound like Edmund when you’re afraid.”
Rafael explained that the Board’s network needed a final authorization.
Logan’s biometric profile.
Edmund had designed the system so only his chosen successor could activate or permanently destroy it.
That successor was Logan.
“Why not force me?” Logan asked.
“The system detects coercion.”
Rafael gestured toward the screens.
“That is why we studied your choices.”
He gave Logan two options.
Activate the Board and gain access to Claire’s complete conditioning codes.
Or destroy the Board and lose the only known method for removing her triggers.
Logan looked at Claire’s file on the screen.
Then at the system-destruction command.
Save Claire.
Or destroy the machine that had ruined thousands of lives.
Rafael smiled.
“Now you understand why choices are the purest form of control.”
A gunshot rang out.
Rafael’s shoulder jerked back.
Evelyn stepped from the shadows holding a weapon.
“Don’t choose anything,” she said. “The system is lying.”
---
## CHAPTER 29 — THE THIRTEENTH CHAIR
Chaos erupted.
Federal agents exchanged fire with Rafael’s guards.
Elena pulled Sofia away from the wall.
Logan dragged Lily behind the control table.
Evelyn kept her weapon trained on Rafael.
“You told me I was Number One,” she said.
Rafael pressed his hand against his bleeding shoulder.
“You were useful.”
“You killed every person who tried to leave.”
“I improved what your father began.”
Edmund struggled to stand.
“You destroyed it.”
Rafael laughed.
“You’re both still pretending this was about research.”
He touched the control panel.
A thirteenth chair rose from beneath the floor.
It faced the other twelve.
The chair was smaller.
Designed for a child.
Noah’s name appeared on the screen above it.
Logan felt cold fury rise inside him.
“You’re not getting near my son.”
Rafael smiled.
“Noah is not the next subject.”
“Then what is he?”
“The failsafe.”
Noah’s unusual resistance to the Board’s drugs was not accidental.
Claire had received an experimental treatment during pregnancy after discovering Edmund’s program.
The treatment altered how Noah’s brain processed certain compounds.
His biological data could disable the conditioning methods permanently.
“He can free every surviving subject,” Rafael said. “Or erase their minds.”
Logan stared at him.
“You need Noah alive.”
“We all do.”
Evelyn stepped closer.
“Where is the real activation code?”
Rafael looked toward the thirteenth chair.
“Inside the boy.”
Suddenly, every screen changed.
A live image of Noah appeared.
He was no longer at the federal residence.
He sat inside the red room beneath the Mercer estate.
Claire stood behind him.
Her second identity had been activated again.
In her hand was the black music box.
Logan reached for his phone.
No signal.
The facility speakers activated.
Claire’s voice filled the room.
“Subject Seven is ready.”
Rafael seemed genuinely surprised.
“I didn’t order that.”
For the first time, fear appeared on his face.
Elena looked at Sofia.
“If Rafael didn’t activate Claire, who did?”
Sofia stared at the screen.
“There was always another member.”
Rafael shook his head.
“No.”
Sofia pointed toward the empty thirteenth chair.
“The child who survived before Evelyn.”
A figure entered the red room behind Claire.
Logan could not see the person’s face.
But Edmund collapsed when he saw the silhouette.
“My God,” he whispered.
“Your mother.”
---
## CHAPTER 30 — THE FIRST MRS. MERCER
Logan’s mother, Margaret Mercer, had died when he was twelve.
Cancer.
A private funeral.
A closed casket.
Another death no one had questioned.
The woman entering the red room moved slowly.
Her hair was white.
Her face was thin.
But Logan recognized her.
She looked directly into the camera.
“Hello, son.”
Logan stumbled toward the screen.
“This is impossible.”
Edmund began shaking.
“Margaret, don’t do this.”
The woman smiled.
“You told him I was dead?”
“You were dying.”
“You made certain of it.”
Rafael stared at the screen in disbelief.
“You were Subject One.”
Margaret touched Noah’s shoulder.
The boy remained unnaturally calm.
Claire stood behind them, her eyes empty under the influence of the trigger.
Margaret explained that Facility Seven had begun with her.
Edmund wanted to remove her memories after she discovered his affairs and financial crimes.
Rafael was the young physician assigned to treat her.
Instead of freeing Margaret, he studied her resistance.
Every later subject came from what they learned through her.
Evelyn.
Claire.
Logan.
Sofia.
Lily.
Noah.
The entire Mercer family had become a laboratory.
“You built the Board together,” Logan said.
Margaret’s expression hardened.
“No. They built a prison.”
“Then let Noah go.”
“I need him.”
“For what?”
“To erase every command they placed inside us.”
Rafael approached the screen.
“The procedure could kill him.”
Margaret looked at him with hatred.
“You always considered casualties acceptable.”
“Noah is a child.”
“So was I.”
Logan slammed his fist against the control table.
“Listen to me. You don’t touch him.”
Margaret looked almost amused.
“You still believe you are speaking as his father.”
“I am his father.”
“Then why does he call another woman Mommy?”
The words struck harder than Logan expected.
Margaret leaned closer to Noah.
“Tell him what Marina taught you.”
Noah looked into the camera.
His voice was quiet.
“She taught me not to be scared of the truth.”
“What truth?” Logan asked.
Noah reached into his shirt and removed a small pendant.
Inside was a photograph.
He held it toward the camera.
The picture showed Elena holding a newborn baby.
The date on the corner was seven years earlier.
The baby was Noah.
Logan turned toward Elena.
She stared at the image in horror.
“I’ve never seen that photograph.”
Margaret smiled.
“Elena did not enter the Mercer estate because Claire asked her to protect Noah.”
Logan’s pulse pounded.
“Then why?”
“Because Elena was present the night he was born.”
Elena shook her head.
“No. Claire gave birth in Boston. I was in Mexico.”
Margaret looked directly at her.
“That is what Rafael made you remember.”
Elena turned toward her father.
Rafael’s silence confirmed that another secret existed.
Margaret continued.
“Noah was not born in Boston.”
“Where was he born?” Logan demanded.
“In the room beneath the red door.”
The screens displayed medical footage.
Claire lay unconscious on an operating table.
Elena stood beside her in surgical clothing.
Rafael carried a newborn child across the room.
But another infant remained inside an incubator.
Two babies.
Logan could barely speak.
“Claire had twins?”
Margaret shook her head.
“No.”
She placed her hand on Noah’s shoulder.
“One child belonged to Claire.”
The camera slowly turned toward a second door inside the red room.
A child’s shadow stood behind the glass.
Margaret smiled.
“And the other child belonged to Elena.”
The door began to open.
Noah whispered one final word.
May you like
“Brother.”
# TO BE CONTINUED
