Chapter 12 - The Keepers)
Smoke poured through the ventilation system.
Marcus wrapped a cloth over Evelyn’s mouth.
“Hidden passage. Now.”
Rose shook her head.
“They know about it.”
“How?”
“I told them.”
Caesar turned.
Rose looked ashamed.
“I thought they were helping me.”
The female voice returned.
“Rose, step away from the others.”
Rose stared at the ceiling speaker.
“They promised nobody would die.”
The woman answered.
“We promised Orpheus would end.”
“There are children here.”
“Exactly.”
Amelia’s face filled with horror.
“They want to kill every child connected to the project.”
Adrian laughed once.
“Now you understand the Keepers.”
Caesar looked at him.
“You knew?”
“I spent ten years fighting them.”
“While kidnapping children yourself.”
“I kept them alive.”
“You turned them into prisoners.”
“I turned them into survivors.”
The fire spread closer.
Vittorio coughed weakly on the floor.
The bullet had entered high in his chest.
Vanessa stared at him.
“He deserved worse.”
Caesar knelt.
Vittorio caught his wrist.
“North chapel.”
“What?”
“Tunnel beneath the altar.”
Marcus heard.
“There is no chapel on the plans.”
Vittorio smiled weakly.
“That is why it works.”
Caesar looked at Adrian.
“Do you know it?”
Adrian nodded reluctantly.
They had no other option.
The strange alliance formed without trust.
Adrian ordered his remaining men ahead.
Marcus took the rear.
Caesar carried Samuel.
Amelia held Evelyn.
Clara supported Vanessa, who was limping after the earlier struggle.
Rose walked beside Vittorio as Daniel helped him.
They moved through smoke-filled corridors toward a private chapel built into the mansion’s oldest wing.
Gunfire echoed behind them.
The Keepers were inside.
At the chapel altar, Vittorio pointed weakly.
“Third marble panel.”
Adrian pressed it.
The altar shifted.
A staircase descended underground.
They entered.
The passage was narrow.
Behind them, the chapel doors exploded inward.
Marcus fired while Adrian’s men pulled the altar closed.
They descended.
The tunnel led beneath the estate toward the lake.
Amelia stopped halfway.
“No.”
Caesar looked at her.
“What?”
“This is the tunnel.”
Her breathing quickened.
“The night they took me.”
She touched the wall.
“I remember this.”
Fragments of memory returned.
Hands carrying her.
Cold air.
Vanessa crying somewhere behind.
A male voice saying the boat was ready.
Caesar took her hand.
“You are not there anymore.”
She looked at him.
Neither knew what they were to each other now.
Husband and wife?
Widower and returned wife?
Parents?
Victims of the same conspiracy?
There would be time for that.
If they lived.
They continued.
The tunnel opened into an underground boathouse.
A black motorboat waited.
Marcus frowned.
“Someone prepared this.”
Adrian checked the fuel.
“Full tank.”
Caesar looked at Vittorio.
“Yours?”
Vittorio shook his head.
“No.”
A speaker mounted overhead clicked on.
The female voice returned.
“You still believe escape is possible.”
Rose looked terrified.
“I know that voice.”
“Who?”
“Dr. Eleanor Shaw.”
Amelia frowned.
“The neurologist?”
Caesar knew the name.
Dr. Shaw directed the Swiss clinic where Isabella lived.
The same woman who had signed every report claiming Caesar’s mother had advanced neurological disease.
Caesar’s rage returned.
“Where is my mother?”
Shaw laughed softly through the speaker.
“You are finally asking the correct question.”
A wall panel opened.
Behind reinforced glass was a small medical room.
A hospital bed stood in the center.
A woman lay under white blankets.
Caesar stopped.
Gray hair.
Thin face.
But unmistakable.
“Mom.”
Isabella Moretti opened her eyes.
Caesar ran toward the glass.
“Mom!”
Her lips moved.
He could not hear.
A microphone activated.
Isabella’s voice was weak.
“Adrian.”
Caesar pressed his palm to the glass.
“Yes.”
She smiled.
“You found your name.”
He broke.
For all his power, all his money, all the years of forcing himself to remain controlled, Caesar broke like a child.
“I thought you were gone.”
“They wanted you to.”
She looked behind him.
At Adrian.
The other man stood motionless.
Isabella’s smile disappeared.
“My Caesar.”
Adrian’s face collapsed.
He approached the glass.
“Mother?”
Isabella lifted a trembling hand.
“My boys.”
Both men stood side by side.
The stolen son and the engineered son.
For a moment there was no Directorate.
No Orpheus.
No empire.
Only a mother seeing two children taken from her in different ways.
Then Dr. Shaw’s voice interrupted.
“One boat. Ten people. And only six minutes before the underground chambers flood.”
Water began pouring through vents near the floor.
Caesar stared upward.
Shaw continued.
“One more thing.”
The glass around Isabella’s room was sealed.
“There is no door on your side.”
Caesar looked frantically along the wall.
“Open it.”
“No.”
“She dies if the room floods.”
“Yes.”
Adrian pulled a gun and fired at the glass.
The bullet flattened.
Reinforced.
Shaw laughed.
“Orpheus was created by people who believed genetics mattered more than love.”
May you like
Water reached Caesar’s ankles.
“Tonight we discover whether they were right.”
