Chapter 21 - THE BROTHER ERASEDMargaret sat beside Bennett inside the hidden treatment room.
“You had a brother,” she said.
Bennett shook his head.
“My mother had one child.”
“No,” Margaret replied. “She raised one.”
Laura’s recording revealed that Bennett’s father, Charles Hale, had participated in an early identity-development trial with Victor’s father.
Twin infants were separated.
Bennett remained with the Hale family.
Daniel was given to another household and later raised under the Crest name.
The purpose was to study whether identity came from blood or environment.
Victor inherited the records.
Daniel learned the truth as an adult.
He believed Bennett had received everything meant for both of them: the Hale name, company, Laura and Harper.
Bennett looked sick.
“I never knew.”
“Daniel believes you did,” Evelyn said.
Adrian found another file.
It contained payments from Bennett’s private account to Daniel over twelve years.
The signatures appeared genuine.
Bennett denied making them.
Someone had been funding Daniel in his name long before the replacement.
Margaret turned toward Evelyn.
“Was it you?”
“No.”
Laura’s recording answered.
“I transferred the money.”
Bennett stared at the screen.
Laura explained that she discovered Daniel while researching Charles Hale’s experiments.
She paid for his medical care and tried to establish contact.
Daniel misinterpreted her secrecy as affection.
When she rejected him, Victor used the humiliation to recruit him.
Harper felt the story closing around all of them.
Daniel had not only wanted Bennett’s life.
He had believed Laura invited him into it.
The recording continued.
“Daniel is dangerous, but he is not the person who designed the replacement.”
A photograph appeared.
It showed Charles Hale standing beside Victor’s father and a young woman.
Margaret covered her mouth.
Harper recognized the woman from family portraits.
Her grandmother.
Margaret Hale.
The woman standing beside Harper was not merely a victim of the program.
She had been present at its creation.
Bennett looked at his mother.
“You knew.”
Margaret’s eyes filled with tears.
“I thought Daniel died after the separation.”
“You allowed them to take him.”
“I was nineteen. Your father told me only one child could legally inherit.”
Harper stepped back.
Margaret had spent years protecting the trust.
Perhaps she had always been protecting the choice that gave Bennett everything.
A warning alarm sounded.
The underground house plan appeared.
Daniel had opened Laura’s sealed bedroom.
Inside it was the original butterfly cake recording.
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The cartridge Harper carried was only a copy.
And the original contained a section Laura had deliberately removed.
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