Chapter 10 - The Husband Behind Glass
David appeared on the screen inside a police interview room.
A bandage covered the side of his face. Soot stained the collar of his shirt. His wrists were cuffed to a metal ring on the table.
For a second, neither spoke.
Then David saw Ethan beside her.
His face broke.
“He’s alive.”
“Yes.”
“I thought…”
“You thought he would die?”
David lowered his eyes.
“I deserve that.”
“You deserve worse.”
“I know.”
Daniel stepped into view behind Valerie.
David stared at him.
The brothers saw each other for the first time in eight years.
Daniel’s voice was flat.
“Hello, David.”
David’s lips trembled.
“I saw them put you on the boat.”
Valerie watched him carefully.
“You said you didn’t remember.”
“I remember now.”
“What changed?” Daniel asked.
“The explosion.”
David closed his eyes.
“When the car caught fire, I heard a sound. Metal twisting. Fuel burning. Then I remembered the marina.”
He took a breath.
“I was twenty-one. Mom told me Daniel had stolen money from the family company. She said he was going to expose me for something I hadn’t done.”
“What did she make you believe I’d done?” Daniel asked.
“That you had placed illegal transfers under my name.”
“I tried to remove your name from the accounts.”
“I know that now.”
David’s voice weakened.
“At the marina, Elias held you down. Mom injected you with something. They put you on the boat.”
“And you watched.”
“I was terrified.”
“You were an adult.”
“I know.”
“Did you see the boat leave?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see what happened after?”
David hesitated.
“There was an explosion offshore.”
Daniel’s scar tightened along his jaw.
“The boat was on autopilot. They left me tied below deck with fuel containers.”
“How did you survive?”
“Charles reached me first.”
Valerie looked at him.
“My father saved you?”
“He had been tracking the laundering network. He pulled me out through a maintenance hatch before the boat exploded.”
“Why didn’t you come home?” David asked.
“Because Theresa and Elias had police, judges, and corporate investigators working for them. Charles created a protected identity for me while we built the archive.”
“Why didn’t you contact me?”
Daniel looked at him for a long moment.
“I did.”
David frowned.
“Three times. The first message went to your apartment. The second went to your office. The third went through a lawyer.”
“I never received them.”
“Theresa responded to the third message.”
“What did she say?”
“She sent a photograph of you standing beside Valerie at a charity auction.”
David went still.
Daniel continued.
“She said you had accepted your role.”
Valerie understood.
“That was the night we met.”
“Yes.”
David looked sick.
“My mother knew Daniel was alive when she sent me to Valerie.”
“She used both of us,” Valerie said.
David raised his eyes.
“That doesn’t excuse what I did.”
“No.”
“I could tell you I thought the trust contained money stolen from my family. I could tell you I believed your father destroyed Daniel. I could tell you my mother manipulated me since childhood.”
“All true,” Valerie said. “None of it explains leaving Ethan without medical help.”
David began to cry.
Not loudly.
The tears simply moved down his soot-stained face.
“I wanted to punish you.”
“For refusing to sign?”
“For having the power to say no.”
The honesty was uglier than another lie.
David continued.
“Every time you refused, I heard my mother saying I was weak. I told myself Ethan was only crying. I told myself you were exaggerating. I knew something was wrong, but I wanted you frightened enough to give in.”
Valerie placed her hand over Ethan’s.
“You wanted your newborn son to suffer so you could control me.”
“Yes.”
Daniel turned away.
Even he could not look at his brother.
David leaned toward the camera.
“I will confess to everything. The fraudulent transfers, the signal blocker, the authorization, the trip. I will testify against Mom and Elias.”
“You think testimony repairs this?”
“No.”
“Then why are you calling?”
“Because there’s something you don’t know.”
Daniel turned back.
“What?”
“The trip to Saint Aurelia wasn’t just an escape.”
David looked toward the interview-room door.
“My mother said there was a medical facility under the Crowne resort. She planned to take Ethan there after Valerie signed.”
Valerie’s blood chilled.
“Take him for what?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were leaving him behind.”
“That’s what I believed. But this morning I found a second travel document in Mom’s bag. A private medical transport was scheduled to collect Ethan tonight.”
Daniel stepped closer to the tablet.
“What procedure?”
“The code was E-V9.”
Daniel’s face changed.
Samuel, standing near the doorway, heard it.
He became pale.
“What does it mean?” Valerie asked.
Samuel closed the door.
“E-V9 was an experimental biometric replication program.”
“Speak clearly.”
“They may not need Ethan alive to use his genetic profile.”
The room went silent.
Valerie pulled the bassinet closer.
David’s voice came through the tablet.
“Valerie, they never planned to let any of you survive.”
A warning appeared on Daniel’s phone.
SECURITY BREACH: LOWER MEDICAL LEVEL.
The lights flickered.
Samuel looked toward the corridor.
“We’ve been found.”
The hospital’s internal alarm began to sound.
Daniel picked up Ethan’s bassinet.
Valerie tore the IV line from her hand.
“Where are we going?”
“Underground exit,” Daniel said.
The tablet still showed David behind glass.
He shouted, “Wait!”
Valerie looked back.
“My mother knows about the exit.”
Daniel stopped.
May you like
David leaned closer to the camera.
“She helped fund this clinic.”
