Chapter 13 - Suite 14
Suite 14 was located in the oldest section of St. Aurelia.
The corridor outside it had no windows, no nurses’ station, and no visible cameras. Dust covered the wall signs, but the electronic lock looked new.
Marcus entered the code.
The door opened.
Inside was a hospital room preserved exactly as it had been fifteen years earlier.
An old bed stood beneath dim fluorescent lights. Analog medical equipment lined one wall. A large mirror covered the opposite side.
Khloe immediately recognized it as observation glass.
Someone was watching from the room beyond.
Noah sat in a chair beside the bed.
Owen stood behind him.
Isabella moved forward.
Owen raised the gun.
“Stop.”
Marcus lifted both hands.
“Let him go.”
Owen’s expression remained cold.
“You failed.”
“I followed every instruction.”
“You married Thomas Arden’s daughter.”
“Thomas requested it.”
“You became emotionally compromised.”
Marcus looked at Khloe.
“So did Thomas.”
The mirror brightened.
A figure appeared behind the glass.
An older woman in a white suit.
Khloe had seen her face in Vale Foundation portraits.
Eleanor Vale.
Marcus’s grandmother.
She had supposedly died nine years earlier.
Marcus stared at her.
“You are alive.”
Eleanor smiled.
“You sound disappointed.”
“You ordered my father’s funeral.”
“Your father became careless.”
Isabella gripped the edge of Khloe’s chair.
“Where is my mother?”
Eleanor ignored her.
Khloe held up the evidence file.
“You wanted this.”
“I want Thomas Arden’s original index.”
“This is all I brought.”
“You underestimate me, child.”
“I am not a child.”
“You married my grandson without understanding his purpose. You carried an heir without reading the trust. You accepted a private suite funded by people you suspected.”
Khloe felt the insult, but she did not look away.
“And you hid behind a dead woman’s identity.”
Eleanor’s smile faded.
Marcus stepped toward the glass.
“Release Noah.”
“The boy has become disruptive.”
“He is my son.”
“Now you remember.”
Noah looked at Marcus.
“You knew I was alive.”
Marcus could not answer.
Eleanor spoke instead.
“Marcus visited you every year.”
Noah’s face tightened.
“The foundation dinners.”
“He watched your progress.”
“You told me I was a scholarship student.”
Marcus looked ashamed.
“I was trying to keep you safe.”
Khloe heard the same sentence Marcus had used on her.
Protection had become the Vale family’s favorite name for control.
Isabella raised the hospital bracelet.
“My mother.”
Eleanor glanced at it.
“Celeste Laurent made poor choices.”
“Is she alive?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“That depends on Marcus.”
Marcus turned.
“What do you want?”
Eleanor looked at Khloe’s stomach.
“The new heir.”
Khloe’s hands closed protectively around the file.
“You will never control my baby.”
“I already control the hospital where your child will be born.”
“Not anymore.”
Eleanor laughed.
“You believe one camera can destroy a system built over four generations?”
“No.”
Khloe looked at the observation mirror.
“But thousands of cameras might.”
She opened her father’s file.
Inside was no paper evidence.
Only a small transmitter Adrian had hidden within the binding.
A green light blinked.
Everything in Suite 14 was being broadcast to the families listed in the archive index, multiple journalists, and independent investigators.
Eleanor’s face changed.
Owen reached for the file.
Marcus stepped between them.
Owen raised the gun.
A shot cracked through the room.
The mirror shattered.
Eleanor disappeared behind falling glass.
Owen staggered, blood spreading across his sleeve. The hospital investigator stood in the doorway with his weapon raised.
Noah ran toward Isabella.
Alarms erupted throughout the building.
Khloe looked through the broken mirror.
The observation room was empty.
A hidden door stood open at the back.
Eleanor had escaped.
But on the floor lay a white folder.
Marcus climbed through the broken frame and picked it up.
The label read:
ARDEN INFANT TRANSFER.
Khloe stared at it.
“What is that?”
Marcus opened the folder.
His face went completely still.
May you like
Eleanor’s voice came through a ceiling speaker.
“Ask Thomas Arden’s daughter why her birth certificate was replaced.”
