Chapter 10 - Five Minutes of Truth
Water began pouring through vents in the ceiling.
Pierce’s men fired at the steel door, but the bullets flattened against it.
The timer showed four minutes and thirty-eight seconds.
Charles approached the central console.
“Clara designed this failsafe with the original architect.”
“My mother was an art conservator,” I said.
“She was many things you never knew.”
He entered a code.
Access denied.
Victoria searched the ledger.
“There must be another sequence.”
Daniel aimed his pistol at Charles.
“Tell us which one of us is Infant A.”
“You want the truth while we drown?”
“I want it before you die.”
Charles looked at him.
“You are Evelyn Reed’s son.”
Daniel’s weapon trembled.
“So Adrian is the Ashford?”
“No.”
Adrian stared at him.
Charles continued.
“Evelyn gave birth to twins.”
The ledger recorded only one Reed infant because the second had been removed before the official examination.
One Reed child entered the Ashford nursery.
The other remained hidden.
“Then which of us belongs to Victoria?” Adrian demanded.
Charles smiled faintly.
“Possibly neither.”
Victoria struck him across the face.
“You said one son survived.”
“I said what you needed to hear.”
Three minutes remained.
The water reached our ankles.
I opened my mother’s letter and searched for clues. The final sentence repeated in my mind.
Do not allow Charles to leave Vault 17.
Perhaps the vault was not designed to kill everyone.
Perhaps it was designed to identify him.
I examined the console.
Below the keypad was a hand scanner.
Blood verifies what names conceal.
“Charles, place your hand there.”
“No.”
“Then we all die.”
“He won’t,” Victoria said. “The vault will compare his blood to the records.”
Adrian understood.
“It will reveal which of us is his son.”
Charles remained still.
Daniel raised the gun.
“Do it.”
Pierce stepped between them.
“We don’t have time.”
He forced Charles’s hand onto the scanner.
A needle punctured his palm.
The screen processed the sample.
Results appeared.
Genetic relationship to Infant A: Excluded.
Genetic relationship to Infant B: Excluded.
Genetic relationship to Infant C: Excluded.
Victoria stared at the screen.
“None of the children were yours.”
Charles pulled his hand away.
The truth had cost him all his power.
He was not the biological father of any child listed in the nursery.
“Who was?” I asked.
Charles did not answer.
The timer showed one minute.
A second message appeared on the console.
Verified non-parental subject detected.
Release protocol available.
Enter maternal family name for Infant C.
Every person looked at Victoria.
She whispered, “Hale.”
I entered it.
Incorrect.
“Your maiden name isn’t Hale?” I asked.
“It is legally.”
“Legally,” Adrian repeated.
Victoria closed her eyes.
“My mother’s original surname was Vale.”
I entered Vale.
The timer stopped at fourteen seconds.
The water drained through the floor.
The steel door unlocked.
Pierce’s men moved toward the exit.
Then Daniel fired once.
The bullet struck Pierce in the leg.
“You’re not leaving with the ledger.”
Adrian took one of the men’s weapons.
For the first time, the brothers stood together.
Victoria faced Charles.
“Who fathered my children?”
Charles wiped blood from his hand.
“Your father chose him.”
“What does that mean?”
“Your marriage required an heir. I was unable to provide one.”
Victoria’s face became empty.
“You knew?”
“From the beginning.”
“And you let me believe the children were yours.”
“The family needed continuity.”
I looked at the ledger.
Infant C’s paternal field had been blacked out.
But beneath the ink, faint initials remained.
S.P.
Agent Samuel Pierce.
Pierce saw me looking.
His expression changed.
“You,” I said.
Victoria turned toward him.
Pierce was not old enough to have been the father.
But his father was.
Pierce smiled through the pain.
“My father served the Ashfords for forty years.”
Victoria whispered a name.
“Stephen Pierce.”
Charles nodded.
The former federal judge who had protected the Ashford family.
A man who had died six months earlier.
My biological father.
The revelation should have ended the mystery of my birth.
Instead, Pierce began laughing.
“You still don’t understand,” he said.
“What?”
“My father was sterile.”
The room went silent again.
“He protected the name on the record,” Pierce continued. “He was never the biological father.”
“Then who was?”
Pierce looked toward the security camera.
“Ask the woman who sent Elena the invitation.”
The speaker activated.
A different woman’s voice filled the vault.
“Bring the ledger to the gala.”
Victoria turned pale.
I recognized the voice from somewhere deep in my childhood.
May you like
The woman continued.
“Or the truth about Clara’s death disappears forever.”
