Chapter 8 - THE DEAD WOMAN ON THE SPEAKER
Nobody moved.
Evelyn stared at the ceiling speaker.
Her lips parted.
“Mom?”
Static answered.
Then the woman spoke again.
“Hello, Evelyn.”
Evelyn’s knees nearly gave out.
Adrian caught her.
His own face had gone pale.
“No.”
The voice paused.
“Adrian.”
He stared upward.
“You’re alive.”
“So are you.”
Adrian shook his head.
“I saw you in the car.”
Victor looked between them.
Evelyn’s mother.
Margaret Mercer.
Another dead person.
Another lie.
Richard’s face had changed completely.
The arrogance was gone.
Victor saw fear.
Not anger.
Fear.
Victor turned toward him.
“You know who that is.”
Richard said nothing.
The speaker crackled.
Margaret answered for him.
“Oh, he knows.”
Richard stared toward the ceiling.
“You should be dead.”
Margaret laughed softly.
“So should half the people in that room.”
Serena stood beside Natalie’s open capsule.
She was trying to disconnect the medical lines.
Lily helped her.
Natalie’s heart rate slowly rose.
Serena touched her mother’s face.
“Mom.”
Natalie’s eyelids fluttered.
Serena began crying harder.
Evelyn barely noticed.
She stared at the speaker.
“Where are you?”
Margaret did not answer.
“Mom.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m safe.”
Adrian laughed bitterly.
“Safe?”
He stepped toward the speaker.
“You let us believe you were dead for twenty-six years.”
Silence.
“You let Evelyn marry into the family that destroyed ours.”
“Adrian—”
“No.”
His voice shook.
“You don’t get to say my name like nothing happened.”
Evelyn looked at him.
Adrian continued.
“I was eight.”
“I woke up in a hospital alone.”
“I spent years hiding.”
“Years.”
“And you were alive?”
Margaret’s voice softened.
“I had reasons.”
Adrian laughed.
“Everybody tonight has reasons.”
Victor understood that feeling.
Evelyn looked upward.
“Why did you stay hidden?”
Margaret paused.
“Because Richard wasn’t the only enemy.”
Richard suddenly spoke.
“Don’t listen to her.”
Victor turned.
Richard looked desperate.
“She’s worse than I ever was.”
Margaret laughed through the speaker.
“That sounds almost like a compliment.”
Victor grabbed Richard.
“What does he mean?”
Margaret answered.
“Your father discovered only part of the Mercer archive.”
Richard snapped.
“Shut it down.”
Nobody moved.
Richard looked toward the terminal.
“SHUT IT DOWN!”
Victor shoved him into a chair.
“Sit.”
Richard glared at him.
Victor turned toward the speaker.
“Talk.”
Margaret was silent for several seconds.
Then she began.
“The Mercer family did not build the archive merely to preserve evidence.”
“We built it to preserve leverage.”
Victor remembered Adrian’s warning.
Blackmail files.
Secrets.
Margaret continued.
“Governors.”
“Judges.”
“Bankers.”
“Executives.”
“Foreign officials.”
“People who believed their private crimes would never be discovered.”
Evelyn looked sick.
“You blackmailed them?”
“Yes.”
Adrian stared upward.
“You’re admitting that?”
“I stopped pretending to be innocent a long time ago.”
Richard laughed.
“There.”
“You hear that?”
“The sainted Mercers.”
Margaret ignored him.
“Richard wanted the archive because he believed whoever controlled it could control everything.”
Victor looked at the terminal.
“And you?”
Margaret answered without hesitation.
“I believed the same thing.”
Evelyn’s face fell.
Victor understood.
This was not Hale against Mercer.
Good family against bad family.
Richard and Margaret were different versions of the same disease.
Power.
Control.
Legacy.
Children treated like pieces on a board.
Victor looked toward Ethan.
The boy stood beside Lily.
Watching adults destroy every myth he had ever been given about family.
Victor walked to him.
He crouched.
“You don’t need to listen to this.”
Ethan shook his head.
“Yes, I do.”
Victor hesitated.
Ethan looked at Richard.
“They keep lying because everyone sends kids away when they talk.”
Victor stared at him.
Ethan continued.
“I want to know.”
Victor felt something painful and proud at the same time.
He nodded.
“Stay beside Lily.”
Ethan did.
Margaret continued.
“Evelyn was never supposed to marry Victor.”
Evelyn looked up.
“What?”
“I placed you near him.”
Silence.
Victor slowly turned toward Evelyn.
She looked equally shocked.
Margaret continued.
“The university scholarship.”
“The internship.”
“The charity board where you met.”
“None of it was accidental.”
Evelyn shook her head.
“No.”
“I wanted someone close to Richard.”
Evelyn’s voice cracked.
“You used me.”
“I protected the family.”
“You used me!”
The speaker remained silent.
Evelyn stepped closer.
“I loved Victor.”
“I know.”
“You didn’t know I would.”
“No.”
Margaret’s voice softened.
“That was the problem.”
Victor looked at Evelyn.
For the first time that night, he believed something completely.
Whatever had brought them together had been manipulated.
But the love had been real.
Margaret continued.
“When you refused to gather information on Richard, I changed the plan.”
Adrian’s eyes narrowed.
“What plan?”
“The heir.”
Victor’s stomach tightened.
Richard looked toward the floor.
Margaret continued.
“The Mercer Restoration Trust required a descendant.”
Evelyn whispered.
“Ethan.”
“Yes.”
Victor looked at Richard.
Then at the speaker.
“You both knew about Project Orpheus.”
Silence.
Victor felt rage building.
“You worked together?”
Richard laughed.
Margaret answered.
“Briefly.”
Evelyn stared.
Richard smiled bitterly.
“Now you understand.”
Victor looked at him.
Richard leaned back.
“Margaret needed an heir.”
“I needed control of the Mercer trust.”
“So we made an arrangement.”
Adrian looked sick.
“You used my genetic material.”
Margaret answered.
“Yes.”
Adrian’s face emptied.
Evelyn whispered.
“Mom…”
Margaret continued.
“Adrian was the cleanest Mercer genetic line.”
Victor’s fists tightened.
“Cleanest?”
“They’re people.”
“Not breeding stock.”
Margaret ignored the anger.
“Evelyn’s ova were viable.”
“Adrian’s sample was available from medical records.”
“Richard controlled the clinic.”
“So Ethan was created.”
Ethan looked at Victor.
Victor immediately went to him.
The boy whispered.
“Created?”
Victor took his face gently between his hands.
“You were born.”
“That’s all that matters.”
Ethan swallowed.
“Did you want me?”
Victor did not hesitate.
“More than anything I have ever wanted.”
Ethan hugged him.
Victor held him.
Margaret’s voice continued overhead.
“Victor was never supposed to become emotionally attached.”
Victor slowly looked up.
Richard smiled faintly.
That was the wrong thing to say.
Victor stood.
“You built a child expecting his father not to love him?”
Margaret answered.
“Biologically, you are not his father.”
Victor’s voice became ice.
“I wasn’t talking about biology.”
Silence.
Lily looked at Victor.
Something changed in her expression.
Respect.
Margaret finally spoke.
“That attachment complicated everything.”
Victor laughed.
“No.”
“That attachment is the only decent thing anyone in your generation gave Ethan.”
Richard stood.
“You think you’re morally superior?”
Victor turned.
“No.”
“I think I’m finished letting dead people run my son’s life.”
Margaret spoke.
“I’m not dead.”
Victor looked toward the speaker.
“Then come here.”
Silence.
“Come stand in front of Evelyn.”
“Come stand in front of Adrian.”
“Come look at Ethan.”
“Explain why you turned all of them into tools.”
Margaret did not answer.
Victor smiled coldly.
“That’s what I thought.”
Suddenly the computer beeped.
ARCHIVE RELEASE: 71%.
Margaret’s voice changed.
“Stop the transfer.”
Victor looked at the screen.
“No.”
“Victor.”
“No.”
“You don’t understand what you’re releasing.”
“Then explain.”
“There are names in those files that cannot become public.”
Richard laughed.
Victor looked between the speaker and his father.
For the first time, both enemies wanted the same thing.
Stop the archive.
Victor understood immediately.
That meant the archive had to finish.
He looked at Lily.
“Can you lock the transfer?”
She sat at the terminal.
“I can try.”
Margaret’s voice sharpened.
“Do not touch that system.”
Lily looked at the speaker.
“Sorry.”
“I’m just the maid.”
Victor almost smiled.
Lily typed.
Richard stared at her.
Serena did too.
Lily found the transfer controls.
“There.”
Victor looked.
A confirmation appeared.
LOCK RELEASE PROCESS?
YES.
NO.
Victor pressed YES.
A warning appeared.
PROCESS CANNOT BE REVERSED.
Victor pressed CONFIRM.
Richard shouted.
“YOU IDIOT!”
Margaret’s voice exploded through the speaker.
“Victor!”
The transfer locked.
74%.
Victor stepped back.
“Now nobody stops it.”
Silence.
Then Margaret said something strange.
“You just killed Daniel Cross.”
Victor froze.
“What?”
Lily stopped typing.
Margaret continued.
“The prosecutor.”
“He received Lily’s message.”
Victor looked at Lily.
Her face went white.
“He opened the file twenty-three minutes ago.”
Margaret continued.
“And Richard’s people know.”
Victor turned toward Richard.
Richard looked confused.
“I gave no order.”
Margaret laughed.
“I didn’t say they were Richard’s people.”
Victor stared.
Margaret continued.
“There is a third group.”
Adrian looked toward the speaker.
“What group?”
“The people whose names are inside the archive.”
Victor felt cold.
Margaret’s voice became quiet.
“They have spent twenty-six years making sure those files never surface.”
“And you just sent them a warning.”
Victor looked at the transfer.
79%.
“How many?”
Margaret answered.
“Enough.”
A distant explosion shook the lab.
Everyone jumped.
Dust fell from the ceiling.
Ethan screamed.
Victor grabbed him.
A second explosion sounded.
Closer.
Adrian looked toward the tunnel.
“They found us.”
Victor turned toward the security monitor.
Several cameras came online.
Black SUVs were moving through the estate.
Not police.
Men in tactical clothing stepped out.
One.
Five.
Ten.
More.
Lily stared.
“Who are they?”
Richard looked at the screen.
For the first time, even he looked afraid.
Margaret spoke through the speaker.
“The people Richard spent his entire life trying not to anger.”
Victor looked at his father.
Richard whispered.
“The Consortium.”
Serena frowned.
“What is that?”
Richard stared at the approaching men.
Then he said the words none of them expected.
May you like
“If they get inside, they won’t arrest anyone.”
“They’ll kill every person in this house.”
