Chapter 9 - THE BOY WITH DAVID’S EYES
The photograph nearly destroyed Emily.
She stared at the boy for several seconds.
Then handed David the phone.
“No.”
He looked at her.
“No.”
“Emily…”
“That could be anyone.”
“Yes.”
“They’re trying to manipulate us.”
“Yes.”
“You’re saying yes but looking at him like…”
“Like what?”
“Like you already believe he’s ours.”
David said nothing.
Emily stood.
“He cannot be ours.”
“Why?”
“Because I would know.”
“How?”
Her face crumpled.
“I don’t know.”
David immediately regretted the question.
He went to her.
“I’m sorry.”
She pushed him once.
Not hard.
“You don’t get to make me hope.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
Her voice broke.
“I buried that baby in my head, David. I buried him because I thought there was nothing else I could do. I spent four years telling myself it happened for a reason. And now you’re showing me a little boy and asking me to imagine he was alive this whole time?”
David wrapped his arms around her.
For several moments she resisted.
Then she collapsed against him.
“I can’t lose him twice.”
“You won’t.”
The photograph contained metadata.
Rachel’s technical team traced it to a hotel network outside Annapolis.
Surveillance showed Liam Blackwood entering the property the previous evening.
David drove directly to his brother’s penthouse.
Liam opened the door holding a drink.
“Well, look who…”
David punched him.
Liam hit the floor.
David stepped inside.
Emily had begged him not to go.
Rachel had warned him not to contaminate potential evidence.
He ignored both.
Liam wiped blood from his mouth.
“You’re insane.”
“Where’s the boy?”
“What boy?”
David showed the photograph.
Liam’s expression flickered.
That was enough.
David grabbed him.
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“You sent this.”
“No.”
“The metadata leads to your hotel.”
Liam laughed nervously.
“Lots of people stay in hotels.”
David shoved him against the wall.
“Who is he?”
“I said I don’t know.”
“You’ve always been a coward, Liam. Don’t become a stupid one.”
Something in Liam cracked.
“Mom sent it.”
“From your phone?”
“She uses my devices sometimes.”
“Why?”
“She said they’re less monitored.”
“Where did she get the photograph?”
“I don’t know.”
David stared.
Liam swallowed.
“I swear.”
“Why is she moving eighty million dollars?”
Liam looked away.
“You know.”
“I know she told you she was protecting the company.”
Silence.
“What did she promise you?”
Liam laughed bitterly.
“You always get everything.”
“There it is.”
“Dad chose you.”
“Thomas wasn’t your father.”
Liam froze.
David had not planned to say it.
But suddenly he needed to know.
Liam stared.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Ask Eleanor.”
Liam’s face changed.
Not disbelief.
Recognition.
David noticed.
“You knew.”
“No.”
“You knew something.”
Liam stepped away.
“When I was sixteen, I found documents.”
“What documents?”
“Adoption records.”
“For me?”
Liam’s voice became quiet.
“Yes.”
David stared.
Liam laughed without humor.
“Congratulations. You’re not the only stolen child.”
Their entire family shifted again.
Liam told him Eleanor had adopted him privately as an infant.
Thomas opposed it.
The records named no biological parents.
Only Halcyon.
David sat.
For the first time in years, he saw his brother not as Eleanor’s spoiled weapon but as another person shaped by the same machinery.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because Mom said if anyone found out, I’d lose everything.”
“You believed her?”
“I was sixteen.”
“You’re thirty-one now.”
Liam’s eyes hardened.
“And every year after that, she gave me another reason.”
David held up the boy’s photograph.
“Help me.”
Liam looked at it.
Then nodded.
“Mom keeps another phone.”
“Where?”
“In the wine cellar.”
Blackwood Manor had a private underground cellar behind the main kitchen.
Liam knew the code.
They entered after midnight.
Behind a false wall were three phones.
Cash.
Passports.
Medical files.
And a small red notebook.
David opened it.
Dates.
Initials.
Payments.
One page listed:
E.B. authorization.
A.V. medical.
L.B. logistics.
And below:
E.R.B. transferred alive.
Date matched Emily’s first pregnancy.
Emily Rose Blackwood.
Transferred alive.
David nearly tore the notebook in half.
Liam stared over his shoulder.
“I didn’t know.”
David looked at him.
“You’re listed.”
L.B.
Liam went white.
“That isn’t me.”
“Your initials.”
“I was twenty-seven. I didn’t know anything about Emily.”
David grabbed his shirt.
“Then who is L.B.?”
“I don’t know!”
Footsteps sounded upstairs.
They froze.
Someone entered the kitchen.
Then the cellar door opened.
Eleanor stood at the top of the stairs.
She looked at the notebook in David’s hands.
May you like
And smiled.
“You really were always your father’s son.”
