Chapter 14 - THE BROTHER WHO REFUSED TO DIE
The explosion lifted the runway like a wave.
Lily fell across Ethan before the first piece of debris struck the pavement.
Victor twisted over both of them, shielding the baby with his back.
A wall of fire rose from the fuel depot.
The abandoned jet rocked on its landing gear.
Police officers scattered.
Bell ran toward his car.
Naomi grabbed Lily’s handcuffs and unlocked them with a key taken from a fallen officer.
“Move.”
They crawled behind an armored vehicle.
Victor checked Ethan.
The baby was crying, but he was uninjured.
A second blast tore through the underground tunnel.
The hangar roof collapsed inward.
Celia had not emerged.
Lily looked toward the flames.
“She was inside.”
Victor handed Ethan to Naomi.
“I will get her.”
“You can barely move your shoulder.”
Victor was already running.
Lily followed.
They reached a side door where smoke rolled across the floor.
Victor wrapped his coat over Lily’s head.
“Stay low.”
They entered together.
Inside, emergency foam mixed with burning fuel and created a black, choking fog.
Lily heard someone coughing near the maintenance room.
They found Celia pinned beneath a metal beam.
Serena lay several feet away.
She had not boarded the helicopter.
Blood covered her forehead.
Her ankle was twisted beneath her body.
“Help me,” she gasped.
Victor moved toward Celia first.
Serena grabbed his pant leg.
“My father did this.”
Victor looked down at her.
“You broke my son’s arm.”
“He told me you would kill me if I failed.”
“You had six months to ask for help.”
“You do not know what he does to people who ask.”
Lily knelt beside Celia.
The beam had trapped her leg, but there was no heavy bleeding.
Victor lifted one end with his good arm and shoulder.
Pain distorted his face.
Lily pulled Celia free.
The ceiling groaned.
They had seconds.
Victor looked at Serena again.
She reached toward him.
“Please.”
He hesitated.
Lily saw the choice.
Leaving Serena would feel like justice.
It would also bury testimony against Lucien and Hale.
“Take her,” Lily said.
Victor stared at her.
“She hurt Ethan.”
“I know.”
“She threatened you.”
“I know.”
“Then why?”
“Because Ethan deserves the truth more than we deserve revenge.”
Victor grabbed Serena beneath the arms.
Lily and Celia supported each other toward the exit.
They cleared the hangar as part of the roof collapsed.
Firefighters took Serena and Celia to separate ambulances.
Bell attempted to reassert control of the scene.
Naomi showed local officers a recording from the airfield maintenance room.
The hidden camera had captured Lucien ordering Victor to sign a false confession.
It had also captured Serena surrendering Ethan and Lucien striking her.
Bell demanded the device.
Naomi gave it to a television reporter instead.
“Broadcast the original file and checksum,” she said.
The reporter understood.
Once the footage was public, Bell could not erase it.
He could only discredit it.
For the first time, that would not be enough.
Federal agents loyal to a different field office arrived and took Bell into temporary custody.
He shouted that Naomi was suspended.
The new agent in charge looked at the burning depot.
“So was the Constitution, apparently.”
Victor was taken to Mercy Federal Hospital under guard.
Ethan was admitted to a secure pediatric floor.
Lily received treatment for smoke inhalation and reopened bruises.
She refused to leave Ethan’s room.
Victor sat beside the crib with one wrist cuffed to the bed rail.
A marshal stood outside.
Ethan held Victor’s finger and slept.
Lily sat across from them.
Neither spoke for a long time.
Finally, Victor looked at her.
“You told the court you did not love me.”
Lily’s breath caught.
Of all the questions in the world, she had not expected that one.
“I was under oath.”
“That does not answer me.”
She almost laughed.
“You choose now to become interested in complete answers?”
His expression softened by a fraction.
“I have had a difficult week.”
“So have I.”
Victor looked down at Ethan.
“You should stay away from me when this ends.”
“That sounds like an order.”
“It is advice.”
“You are worse at advice.”
He almost smiled.
Then the door opened.
Naomi entered with Agent Reed, who had survived the bank shooting and now wore a sling.
Reed looked pale but determined.
“We found the helicopter,” Naomi said.
“Abandoned on a hospital roof.”
“No Lucien.”
“Any pilot?” Victor asked.
“Dead.”
“A single gunshot.”
Lily looked toward Serena’s room down the hall.
“Lucien went underground before the explosion.”
Naomi nodded.
“He used the tunnel to enter a second vehicle.”
“Traffic cameras lost it near the river.”
Agent Reed placed Adrian’s laptop on the table.
“The device survived the church and the airfield.”
“Elena’s drive copied only one encrypted folder before verification failed.”
“What folder?” Lily asked.
Reed opened it.
A list of birth certificates appeared.
Hundreds of names.
Each record linked an original mother, a falsified death certificate, and an adoptive family who paid the Blackwood Foundation.
Celia’s son appeared on page forty-two.
So did Serena Montigue.
Serena’s original name was Sarah Wynn.
Her mother had been a nineteen-year-old waitress who was told her daughter died during delivery.
Dr. Hale signed the death certificate.
Lucien Montigue purchased the adoption eleven days later.
Lily stared at the screen.
“Serena was one of the stolen children.”
Victor’s face remained cold.
“It does not excuse what she did.”
“No.”
“But it explains why Lucien owns her fear.”
Naomi opened another record.
Victor Blackwood’s name appeared.
His birth mother was not Isabelle.
The record listed a woman named Margaret Cole.
Adrian’s record listed the same mother.
The twins had been sold to Alessandro Blackwood through Dr. Hale.
Isabelle had been instructed to pretend they were hers.
Victor stared at the document as if reading the death of his childhood.
“My mother knew.”
“She may have been forced,” Lily said.
“She never told me.”
“Neither did Elena.”
Victor looked at her.
The comparison hurt both of them.
Naomi closed the list.
“Dr. Hale did not merely work for the network.”
“She built its medical system.”
“And Lucien handled the buyers.”
Agent Reed looked toward the corridor.
“Serena is asking to speak with Lily.”
Victor’s hand tightened around the bed rail.
“No.”
Lily stood.
“She may know where Lucien went.”
“She may put a knife in your throat.”
“She can barely stand.”
“She broke a baby’s arm while wearing heels.”
Lily walked toward the door.
Victor caught her wrist with his uncuffed hand.
His grip was firm but not painful.
“Do not mistake understanding her history for trusting her.”
Lily looked at him.
“I do not.”
“Good.”
He released her.
Serena’s room was guarded by two federal agents.
Her ankle was casted.
Stitches crossed her forehead.
Without makeup, she looked younger and more frightened.
Lily remained near the door.
“You asked for me.”
Serena looked toward the agents.
“Alone.”
“No.”
Serena laughed weakly.
“You finally learned.”
Lily said nothing.
Serena looked at the ceiling.
“My father adopted me because my mother could not give him a biological child.”
“I know.”
Serena turned sharply.
“How?”
“Elena’s files.”
“Then you know he called me an investment.”
“No.”
“That part was private.”
Serena swallowed.
“He trained me to become useful to powerful men.”
“Charity boards.”
“Political dinners.”
“Marriages.”
“When Victor proposed, my father said I had finally paid for myself.”
Lily felt no sympathy for Serena’s choices.
She still felt the horror of the life that shaped them.
“Where is Lucien?”
Serena closed her eyes.
“Dr. Hale has a surgical center beneath St. Agnes.”
“Not the orphanage you visited.”
“The new children’s wing across the street.”
“They move records and people through the old tunnels.”
“What is Lucien doing there?”
“Preparing new identities.”
“For whom?”
“For himself.”
“Bell.”
“Judge Crane.”
“And anyone he can still save.”
Lily leaned closer.
“Why tell me?”
Serena opened her eyes.
“Because he left me in the fire.”
“That is revenge, not truth.”
“Does the difference matter if the address is real?”
“Yes.”
“To you, perhaps.”
Serena looked toward Ethan’s room.
“Did he ask for me?”
“No.”
The answer cut Serena deeper than Lily intended.
“He will remember,” Serena whispered.
“He may.”
“Will you tell him I was sick?”
Lily’s voice hardened.
“I will never tell him your pain erased his.”
Serena looked away.
Then she said something so quietly Lily almost missed it.
“Hale did not switch Ethan after he was born.”
“What?”
“She switched the embryos before he was conceived.”
Lily stepped closer.
“Elena used fertility treatment after two miscarriages.”
“Hale kept genetic material from Victor and Adrian.”
“She told my father she could make an heir who belonged to both brothers on paper.”
“Why?”
“To control whichever brother survived.”
Lily felt cold.
“Is Ethan Victor’s son?”
Serena looked at her.
“Hale said he was designed to be impossible to prove.”
Before Lily could ask more, alarms sounded throughout the hospital.
The lights flickered.
A nurse ran past the door.
“Security breach on the pediatric floor.”
Lily turned toward Ethan’s room.
The two agents outside Serena’s door drew their weapons.
Every electronic lock released at once.
At the end of the hallway, a man in surgical scrubs pushed a covered gurney into the elevator.
May you like
A small bandaged hand slipped from beneath the sheet.
THE NANNY'S TESTIMONY
