Chapter 10 - My Father Came Back From the Dead
Luka broke us out using a maintenance hatch behind the freezer.
By nightfall, we had located the signal from Danielle’s video.
An abandoned Mercer research facility forty miles north.
Police wanted to wait for a tactical team.
I refused.
Luka agreed with police.
I hated him for three minutes.
Then he said, “If we rush in blind and Daniel dies, you’ll never forgive yourself.”
He was right.
I hated that more.
We entered after midnight with federal agents Luka had contacted through an old investigation into Moretti Biomedical.
The building was mostly empty.
Danielle had expected us.
Of course she had.
We found my father in the basement.
Alive.
When I saw him, I stopped walking.
He stood slowly.
“Claire.”
I was seventeen again.
Running through the rain after being told my father’s car had gone off the road.
I crossed the room and hit him.
Once.
Across the chest.
Then I grabbed him and sobbed into his shoulder.
“You were alive.”
“I know.”
“You were alive!”
“I’m sorry.”
“You let me bury an empty coffin!”
His arms tightened around me.
“If I came back, they would’ve taken you.”
I cried harder.
“I hated you for leaving.”
“I know.”
“I thought you chose work over us.”
“Never.”
Behind us, Luka quietly left the room.
Dad noticed.
“He kept his promise.”
“What promise?”
“That you’d get a normal life.”
I laughed through tears.
“Great job.”
Dad smiled weakly.
Then his expression turned serious.
“Where’s Sophie?”
“Safe with Mom.”
“Are you sure?”
I froze.
“Yes.”
“Claire, Danielle has access to Linda’s old phone records.”
I pulled out my phone.
Called Mom.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
I ran.
Luka met me in the hallway.
“What?”
“My mother.”
He understood instantly.
We raced outside.
Halfway back to Luka’s apartment, my phone rang.
Mom.
I answered.
“Mom?”
Danielle spoke.
“Wrong woman.”
My blood went cold.
“Sophie?”
“She’s fine.”
“If you touch her—”
“I won’t.”
A pause.
“Unless you make me.”
Luka gripped the steering wheel.
“Where?”
Danielle said, “Moretti Tower.”
Luka’s face changed.
His family’s corporate headquarters.
“Why there?”
“Because that’s where this began.”
The call ended.
Dad, sitting behind us, whispered, “No.”
“What?”
“The lab under Moretti Tower.”
Luka looked in the mirror.
“It was sealed.”
Dad shook his head.
“Your father never destroyed it.”
Luka’s hands tightened.
“My father is dead.”
Dad looked at him.
“No, Luka.”
The car went silent.
“What did you say?”
“I saw Vittorio Moretti six months ago.”
Luka’s face drained of color.
His father.
The man who had funded M-17.
The man Luka believed had died five years earlier.
Dad leaned forward.
“Danielle isn’t running the project.”
A chill moved through me.
May you like
“She never was.”
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