Chapter 8 - THE OTHER BLACKWOOD
Lily gripped the phone with both hands.
Adrian held Ethan against his chest as casually as if he had carried him every day.
The baby looked frightened but unharmed.
“Put him down,” Lily said.
Adrian smiled.
“You sound like Elena.”
Naomi looked up from Agent Reed.
“Keep him talking.”
Lily pressed the speaker button.
“What do you want?”
“My family records.”
“The letter.”
“The drive.”
“And both keys.”
“You already tried to take the box.”
“I tried to open it politely.”
“Your idea of polite includes shooting a federal agent?”
Adrian glanced off camera.
“That was Dante.”
“He becomes emotional when plans change.”
Lily heard a faint sound behind him.
Church bells.
Three strikes.
Then a train horn.
He was no longer beneath St. Michael’s.
The video feed had been routed through a recorded background.
Naomi noticed Lily listening.
She wrote on the floor with her finger.
LOCATION?
Lily shook her head.
Adrian adjusted Ethan’s blanket.
“Victor told you I was cruel.”
“He left out the interesting parts.”
“He said you were dead.”
“Victor believes what makes him comfortable.”
“No one comfortable buries his brother.”
Adrian’s smile faded slightly.
“He did not bury me.”
“He buried a stranger our father purchased from a morgue.”
“Why?”
“Because I discovered what our family really was.”
Lily looked at the wounded Agent Reed.
“Child traffickers.”
Adrian laughed softly.
“You opened the ledger.”
“Your father started it.”
“Our father inherited it.”
“From whom?”
“Ask Victor who his mother was.”
Victor’s mother, Isabelle Blackwood, had died when he was ten.
The public story said cancer.
Elena’s files contained almost nothing about her.
Adrian continued.
“She was not a Blackwood by birth.”
“She was purchased by one.”
Lily felt sick.
“What does that mean?”
“It means our family empire was built on children who became adults and learned to buy other children.”
Naomi whispered into her radio, calling for medical help through a coded channel.
Adrian heard the faint static.
“You have three minutes before Dante reaches the church camera and realizes I borrowed his show.”
“You are not working with him?” Lily asked.
“I work with no one.”
“Yet he knew where to find us.”
“I told him enough to make him useful.”
“And Serena?”
“Useful too.”
“You let her hurt Ethan.”
The amusement vanished from Adrian’s face.
“No.”
“I told her to frighten you.”
“I told her to create a bruise that could be photographed.”
“I did not tell her to break his arm.”
Lily’s rage sharpened her voice.
“You do not get credit for choosing a smaller cruelty.”
Adrian looked at Ethan.
“No.”
“I suppose I do not.”
His response was so calm that it frightened Lily more than denial.
“Are you his father?” she asked.
Adrian looked into the camera.
“Elena believed I was.”
The vault seemed to tilt around Lily.
“Did you force her?”
Adrian’s face turned cold.
“No.”
“Then explain.”
“I cannot in three minutes.”
“Try.”
He breathed out slowly.
“Elena came to me after Victor refused to believe the foundation was corrupted.”
“I had evidence.”
“She had access.”
“We worked together.”
“That does not explain Ethan.”
“No.”
“It does not.”
Lily wanted to reach through the phone and tear the truth from him.
Adrian continued.
“The DNA result was designed to lead Victor to me.”
“Designed by whom?”
“Dr. Hale.”
“Is it false?”
“The match is real.”
“But biology is not always the story people think it is.”
The phone displayed thirty seconds remaining.
Adrian’s voice became urgent for the first time.
“Do not give the drive to Naomi.”
Naomi stared at the phone.
“Why?” Lily asked.
“Because Elena named the federal agent who betrayed her.”
Naomi stood.
“That is enough.”
Adrian smiled.
“Hello, Agent Price.”
“You still wear your guilt beautifully.”
Naomi took the phone from Lily.
“Where is the child?”
“Safe from you.”
“I tried to protect Elena.”
“You gave her location to Bell.”
Naomi’s face drained of color.
Lily stared at her.
Adrian continued.
“You thought Bell was honest.”
“You thought one shared task force meant trust.”
“Elena died eleven minutes later.”
The screen went black.
Naomi stood motionless.
“You told Bell where Elena was?” Lily asked.
Naomi returned the phone.
“She called from a moving car.”
“I asked local police to intercept her before she reached the highway.”
“Bell answered the dispatch.”
“You never told me.”
“I could not prove he caused the crash.”
“You knew enough to hide your mistake.”
Naomi flinched.
Agent Reed groaned.
The argument stopped.
They needed to leave the vault.
The bank manager guided Lily to a mechanical override behind the deposit cabinets.
She pulled it.
The gate opened six inches, then jammed.
Naomi and Lily forced it wider together.
Paramedics reached them through the main stairwell.
Agent Reed was carried out alive.
The bank manager went with him.
Lily refused medical attention.
She ran toward the third-floor security office.
Victor was not there.
Blood marked the stair rail.
She followed the drops to the roof.
The door stood open.
Wind tore across the bank tower.
Victor knelt near the ledge, one hand pressed to his wounded shoulder.
Dante stood behind him with a gun against the back of his head.
Lily raised her revolver.
Dante smiled.
“Drop it.”
Victor looked at her.
“Do not.”
Dante pressed the gun harder against his skull.
“Your boss gives terrible advice.”
“He is not my boss.”
Dante laughed.
“That is why I like you.”
Naomi emerged onto the roof behind Lily.
Dante shifted his aim toward her.
“Agent Price.”
“You always arrive after the blood.”
“Let him go,” Naomi said.
“I will trade Victor for the drive.”
Lily held the flash drive in her left hand.
Dante’s eyes fixed on it.
“Slide it over.”
“Where is Ethan?”
“With Adrian.”
“Where?”
“I do not know.”
Victor looked at Dante.
“You are losing control.”
Dante struck him across the head with the pistol.
Lily’s finger tightened on the trigger.
Victor steadied himself.
“Serena survived.”
“Adrian has the child.”
“Lucien has the courts.”
“And you are standing on a roof begging a nanny for a piece of plastic.”
Dante’s face twisted.
“You were always arrogant.”
“You were always second.”
Dante fired at Lily.
Victor drove his shoulder into Dante’s legs at the same instant.
The bullet tore through Lily’s sleeve.
Naomi fired twice.
Dante staggered backward.
His heel slipped over the ledge.
Victor caught his wrist.
For one second, Dante hung forty stories above the street.
He looked up at the man he had betrayed.
“Pull me up,” he said.
Victor’s wounded arm shook.
“Tell me where Ethan is.”
“Pull me up first.”
Victor’s fingers began to slide.
Dante looked at Lily.
“Adrian will kill the boy if he reads Elena’s letter.”
Lily stepped closer.
“Why?”
“Because Ethan is not Adrian’s son.”
Victor tightened his grip.
“Whose son is he?”
Dante smiled through blood.
“Yours.”
Then someone fired from the neighboring rooftop.
The bullet struck Dante in the chest.
His hand tore free from Victor’s.
He fell without another sound.
Victor rolled behind the ledge.
Naomi pulled Lily down as a second bullet struck the roof.
The sniper vanished among the buildings.
Victor stared over the edge at Dante’s body far below.
“He said Ethan is mine.”
Lily looked at the letter clenched in her hand.
“Then Elena’s letter explains how.”
Naomi reached for it.
Lily stepped away.
Adrian’s warning echoed in her mind.
Do not give the drive to Naomi.
Victor saw the hesitation.
“Open the letter,” he said.
Lily broke the seal.
Inside was a single page in Elena’s handwriting.
The first paragraph described Victor’s birth.
The second described Adrian’s.
The third made Lily sit down on the wet roof.
Victor read it beside her.
Their father had not lied about one child.
He had lied about both.
Victor and Adrian were not brothers born eleven months apart.
May you like
They were identical twins separated at birth.
THE NANNY'S TESTIMONY
