Chapter 13 - MY MOTHER'S SECRET
I laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because sometimes the truth becomes too painful for any other reaction.
“My mother?”
Grandpa nodded.
“No.”
“Claire.”
“She loved me.”
“I know.”
“She would never—”
“She didn't know they intended to kidnap you.”
I stopped.
“What?”
Grandpa looked exhausted.
“Your mother believed she was helping federal investigators.”
Dad stared at him.
“You told me Evelyn wasn't involved.”
“I was protecting you.”
“Stop saying that!”
My father's voice shook the room.
“You disappeared.”
“You let Claire believe you were dead.”
“You let me spend twenty-two years hunting ghosts.”
“And now you tell me my wife helped them take our daughter?”
Grandpa lowered his eyes.
“I made terrible choices.”
Dad laughed bitterly.
“That's what you call this?”
I stepped between them.
“Where is Mom?”
My mother had died seven years earlier.
Cancer.
Or at least that was what I had believed.
Grandpa looked at me.
My stomach turned.
“No.”
He didn't speak.
“Grandpa.”
Still nothing.
“Where is my mother?”
A door opened behind him.
Footsteps.
Slow.
A woman appeared.
Older.
Thinner.
Her hair almost entirely gray.
But I knew her face.
My entire body stopped.
“Mom?”
She covered her mouth.
I couldn't breathe.
My father stumbled backward.
“Evelyn?”
She began crying.
“Richard.”
Dad looked as though he had been shot.
“You died.”
“I know.”
“I buried you.”
“I know.”
I stared at both of them.
Two funerals.
Two graves.
Two decades of lies.
“What is wrong with this family?”
Nobody answered.
I turned toward my mother.
“Why?”
She walked toward me.
I stepped backward.
She stopped immediately.
That hurt her.
Good.
I wanted it to.
“You don't get to hug me.”
She nodded through tears.
“I understand.”
“No.”
My voice cracked.
“You don't understand anything.”
“You let me mourn you.”
“I had to.”
“Everybody keeps saying that!”
I screamed it.
The room became silent.
“No more.”
I pointed toward Grandpa.
“You.”
“Twenty-two years.”
Then Mom.
“You.”
“Seven years.”
Then Dad.
“And you lied about my kidnapping.”
I looked at all three.
“My entire childhood was built out of secrets.”
Nobody defended themselves.
I wiped my eyes.
“Start talking.”
Mom did.
She had discovered the network seven years earlier.
Not the old network.
The new one.
Someone had rebuilt it.
Someone younger.
More aggressive.
Someone using the old financial architecture for weapons trafficking, political bribery, and corporate blackmail.
She infiltrated it.
Then they discovered her.
Grandpa helped fake her death.
“Who runs it?”
Mom looked at me.
“We don't know.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Of course.”
“But we know the code name.”
“What?”
She hesitated.
“Crown.”
Marcus entered suddenly.
“Claire.”
His expression made my blood cold.
“What?”
“We intercepted a transmission.”
“From Cross?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
Marcus looked toward my mother.
“Crown.”
Mom went pale.
“What did it say?”
Marcus handed me the phone.
One sentence appeared.
BRING CLAIRE BENNETT BACK TO THE GALA BEFORE 8:00 A.M., OR GRANT HOLLOWAY DIES.
I stared at the message.
May you like
Then another arrived.
AND THIS TIME, LOCK EVERY EXIT.
