Chapter 7 - The Forgotten Daughter)
Caesar could not breathe.
Amelia grabbed his arm.
“She could be lying.”
The voice returned.
“To prove our sincerity, check the monitor marked east service gate.”
Marcus activated the screen.
A camera image appeared.
A teenage girl sat tied to a chair in the rain.
Her hair was dark.
Her face was bruised but conscious.
Around her neck hung a card.
C14.
Caesar stared.
“Who is she?”
Amelia covered her mouth.
“I saw that code.”
“Where?”
“In the laboratory records.”
She moved to the laptop and searched the memory card.
A spreadsheet opened.
C14.
Donor Father: C. Moretti.
Donor Mother: A. Bennett.
Gestational Carrier: Classified.
Birth date: June 18, 2012.
Caesar calculated automatically.
Fourteen.
His daughter was fourteen.
He stared at the girl on the screen.
Dark hair like his.
Amelia’s eyes.
Vanessa whispered, “Oh my God.”
The woman’s voice came again.
“Her name is Rose.”
The girl on the monitor lifted her head.
“Dad?”
Caesar nearly broke.
It was one word.
But no stranger had taught her how to say it with that much desperate hope.
Caesar stepped toward the exit.
Marcus blocked him again.
“Think.”
“That is my daughter.”
“They expect exactly this reaction.”
Caesar grabbed Marcus’s jacket.
“Move.”
“If you open that door without a plan, you lose both children.”
Amelia stepped between them.
“He is right.”
Caesar released Marcus.
His hands shook.
He hated that they shook.
He turned toward Vanessa.
“You know the Directorate.”
“No.”
“You know Orpheus.”
“Not them.”
“Someone taught you about the stabilizer.”
Vanessa hesitated.
“That came from Dr. Adrian Vale.”
Marcus frowned.
“The geneticist?”
Vanessa nodded.
Vale had been a respected physician before vanishing from public life eight years earlier.
Caesar remembered him from business magazines.
“He supervised the surrogate program.”
“Where is he?”
“I do not know.”
Amelia looked at her.
“You are lying.”
Vanessa snapped, “You think I enjoyed this?”
“I think you knew enough to hide Samuel’s identity.”
“I was trying to protect him.”
“By forcing him to drink something while he screamed?”
“He hates the taste.”
Clara interrupted.
“We do not have time for this.”
She pointed at the screen.
Rose’s chair was positioned beside the exterior generator station.
“There is a maintenance tunnel under that gate.”
Marcus looked at her.
“How do you know?”
“I worked here eight months.”
“No maid knows the underground security map.”
Clara stared at him.
“I was not hired to clean.”
Caesar laughed bitterly.
“Of course you were not.”
Clara continued.
“There is an old irrigation passage beneath the east gardens. It predates the security renovation.”
Marcus checked architectural files.
“She is right.”
Caesar looked at Daniel.
“You take the tunnel.”
Daniel nodded.
“Sir.”
“Get Rose.”
“What about Samuel?”
“We do not trade him.”
The speaker crackled.
“You have four minutes.”
Caesar walked toward the microphone panel.
“You want Samuel?”
The woman replied immediately.
“Yes.”
“Then come inside and take him.”
Amelia turned.
“Caesar.”
He raised a hand.
The voice laughed.
“Still Vittorio’s son.”
“No.”
Caesar looked toward Evelyn.
“I learned what not to become.”
The voice paused.
Then said, “Your mother said something similar.”
Caesar froze.
“My mother?”
“Isabella Moretti was the first person to understand what Orpheus had become.”
Caesar’s voice dropped.
“She is ill.”
“Is she?”
His blood went cold.
The woman continued.
“Ask yourself why a healthy forty-eight-year-old woman developed sudden neurological failure three weeks after threatening to expose her husband.”
Caesar remembered.
His mother dropping a glass at dinner.
Her speech slurring.
Her confusion.
His father arranging private treatment.
A clinic in Switzerland.
No visitors for months.
Vittorio telling Caesar she no longer recognized him.
“Where is my mother?”
“Closer than you think.”
The transmission ended.
Daniel prepared to leave through the tunnel.
Clara caught his arm.
“Wait.”
She pointed at Rose’s screen.
“Her hands.”
Rose’s fingers were moving against the chair.
Tapping.
Three short.
Three long.
Three short.
SOS.
Then another pattern.
Marcus leaned closer.
“She is using Morse code.”
Caesar knew enough from childhood sailing lessons.
Rose repeated four letters.
T.
R.
A.
P.
Daniel stopped.
Marcus zoomed the image.
Rose deliberately looked toward something behind the camera.
Then she tapped again.
N.
O.
T.
M.
E.
Caesar frowned.
“Not me?”
Amelia understood.
“That girl is telling us she is not Rose.”
The screen flickered.
The teenager smiled.
Her frightened expression vanished.
She stood.
The ropes fell loose.
She had never been tied.
She looked directly at the camera.
“Good.”
Her voice came through the speakers now.
“You can learn.”
Behind her, six armed men emerged from the darkness.
She lifted a remote control.
“Now give us Samuel.”
A second explosion shook the west side of the house.
Marcus checked the monitors.
His face drained.
“They are not attacking the front entrance.”
Caesar looked over.
“Where?”
Marcus enlarged one camera.
May you like
Smoke poured through the servants’ wing.
“They are already inside.”
