## CHAPTER 15 ### The Mothers at the Marina
We reached the marina twenty minutes later.
The monastery continued collapsing behind us, sending dark smoke across the coast. Mexican authorities sealed the road while rescue teams searched for survivors.
No trace of Camila or Arturo had been found.
At the marina, Bianca stood near a white yacht holding Grace against one shoulder.
A toddler clung to her leg.
He was approximately one year old, with dark curls and a crescent-shaped mark across his wrist.
Bianca’s son.
Across from her stood a young woman with long black hair and hospital scars along both arms.
Amelia Reyes.
Tomas’s missing daughter.
Hope’s biological mother.
Two armed agents watched the women from a distance.
Rebecca was gone.
“What happened?” I asked.
Bianca looked exhausted.
“Grace was inside the yacht. Mateo was with Amelia.”
She touched the toddler’s hair.
“His name is Mateo?”
“That’s what Father called him.”
Amelia shook her head.
“His name is Samuel.”
Bianca’s eyes hardened.
“He is my son.”
“I raised him for eleven months.”
“You were told to raise a stolen child.”
“I was told his mother abandoned him.”
“I never did.”
Amelia looked toward the toddler.
“He calls me Mama.”
The pain between them was unbearable.
Two mothers had been used.
Neither was responsible for the theft.
Both loved the same child.
Rafael approached slowly.
“Where is Rebecca?”
Amelia pointed toward the yacht.
“She went below with a man.”
“What man?”
“Marcus Vale.”
Marcus had been arrested at Lake Arrowhead.
Or someone wearing his identity had been.
Detective Moreno contacted California authorities.
The man in custody was not Marcus.
His fingerprints belonged to a former Valdés employee surgically altered to resemble him.
The real Marcus had traveled to Mexico.
Another manufactured identity.
Another face used as a weapon.
We boarded the yacht.
Below deck, we found Rebecca’s blood near an open safe.
The safe had contained the second archive key.
“The monastery vault has two entrances,” Rafael said.
Camila’s key opened the main door.
Rebecca’s opened an underwater passage connected to the marina.
Arturo had never been trapped.
He planned the collapse as an escape.
A radio on the navigation desk activated.
Marcus’s voice filled the cabin.
“Rafael, sail north.”
“Where is Rebecca?”
“Alive.”
“Where is my mother?”
“With Arturo.”
“Did Camila fire the gun?”
“Yes.”
“Who did she shoot?”
Marcus laughed.
“Come north.”
The radio displayed coordinates twelve miles offshore.
Mexican authorities warned us not to follow.
A naval unit was approaching.
Then Lucia’s monitor began losing signal.
The portable incubator battery had been damaged during the monastery collapse.
The marina clinic could not support a premature infant.
The yacht had a medical bay because Arturo used it to transport patients.
Our fastest option was to take Lucia aboard while agents escorted us.
I hated using Arturo’s vessel.
I hated having no better choice.
Daniel and Michael arrived from the coastal clinic with Hope.
Hope was stable.
The clinic contained frozen genetic samples from dozens of people but no other children.
Grace remained with Bianca.
The three infants were placed in the yacht’s medical bay under the care of two federal doctors.
Amelia and Mateo came with us because she refused to let the child out of her sight.
Bianca refused to leave him.
The yacht sailed north.
Military vessels approached from the west.
At the coordinates, we found a smaller boat drifting without lights.
Rebecca lay on the deck, injured but alive.
Marcus stood beside her with a detonator.
A cable ran from the smaller boat beneath our yacht.
Explosives.
“If anyone approaches, both vessels sink,” he announced over the radio.
Rafael moved to the outer deck.
“What do you want?”
“The archive key and Daniel.”
Daniel stepped forward.
“Why me?”
“Your biological signature opens the encrypted records.”
“The vault is mechanical.”
“The paper records are. The names connecting them to current identities are digital.”
Daniel looked at Michael.
“Why not him?”
“Because Arturo registered you as both Hart and Valdés. Your biometrics authenticate both family lines.”
Marcus ordered Daniel into a small launch carrying the key.
I grabbed my brother’s arm.
“No.”
“He will detonate the yacht.”
“We do not know that.”
“We cannot risk the children.”
Daniel boarded the launch.
Rafael quietly instructed a naval sniper through a hidden earpiece.
Marcus kept Rebecca between himself and the open water.
When Daniel reached the smaller boat, Marcus scanned his palm and eye.
The system accepted him.
An encrypted drive opened.
Thousands of names appeared on the yacht’s monitor.
Politicians.
Judges.
Business leaders.
Children declared dead and given new identities.
One file carried Mara’s name.
Another carried Rafael’s.
Another carried mine.
I opened my file.
The birth certificate listed a different father.
Arturo Valdés.
I stared at the screen.
“No.”
Rafael looked over my shoulder.
The document claimed Arturo was my biological father.
If true, Rafael and I had been raised as siblings by blood through the Valdés line.
The marriage would be invalid.
Our daughter’s identity would become a legal and emotional catastrophe.
Michael examined the metadata.
“These files can be forged.”
Marcus heard.
“They are not.”
My mother had told me she had a relationship before my birth.
She never named the man.
Could it have been Arturo?
My stomach turned.
Rafael stepped away from me.
His face had become empty.
“No,” I said.
He could not look at me.
On the smaller boat, Daniel demanded Rebecca be released.
Marcus handed him a pistol.
“Kill her.”
Daniel stared at him.
“Why?”
“She is the only witness who can disprove Elena’s birth record.”
Rebecca lifted her head.
“Do it.”
“No.”
“If I die, Marcus loses leverage.”
Marcus smiled.
“If she dies by your hand, Arturo gains something better. A public murderer as the Hart-Valdés heir.”
Daniel threw the gun into the sea.
Marcus pressed the detonator.
A warning alarm sounded beneath our yacht.
Thirty seconds.
Naval vessels moved closer.
Marcus dragged Rebecca toward the cabin.
Daniel attacked him.
They crashed through the railing.
The detonator fell.
Rebecca kicked it into the water.
The countdown continued.
Rafael ordered everyone into the medical launch.
We could not move three incubators and a toddler in thirty seconds.
Michael ran toward the engine room to disconnect the explosive cable.
I stayed with Lucia.
Rafael tried to pull me away.
“I am not leaving her.”
“Then I’m not leaving you.”
Bianca held Grace.
Amelia held Hope with Mateo strapped against her chest.
Ten seconds.
The yacht shuddered.
Five.
Four.
Three.
The countdown stopped.
Michael’s voice came through the intercom.
“Cable disconnected.”
Then an explosion erupted beneath the smaller boat.
Daniel and Marcus vanished into the water.
Rebecca was thrown onto the deck.
Flames spread across the sea.
We searched the water.
Daniel surfaced near the stern.
A naval diver reached him.
Marcus did not appear.
As we transferred the infants to a military vessel, Rafael avoided me.
The false or genuine birth record stood between us.
Rebecca regained consciousness aboard the rescue ship.
I showed her the document.
“Is Arturo my father?”
She read it.
Then she looked at me.
“No.”
“Can you prove it?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Because Arturo cannot father children naturally.”
I glanced toward Grace.
“Grace is genetically his.”
“She was created using stored material from Arturo’s younger brother.”
“Who?”
Rebecca looked at Daniel, being treated across the deck.
“The brother everyone believed died at birth.”
I followed her gaze.
“No.”
“Daniel is not Arturo’s son,” Rebecca said. “He is his younger brother.”
That meant Camila was not Daniel’s mother.
Arturo was not Rafael’s father.
The entire family structure shifted again.
Rebecca touched my arm.
“There is only one person who knows every true parentage.”
“Who?”
“Your mother.”
My phone rang.
Mara was calling.
She was crying.
“Elena, we found your mother’s car.”
“Where is she?”
“Gone.”
“What happened?”
“There was a message on the windshield.”
Mara sent a photograph.
My mother’s handwriting filled the page.
I AM GOING TO ARTURO.
DO NOT FOLLOW.
May you like
HE IS ELENA’S FATHER.
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