Chapter 13 - The Father Hidden in the Blood
Victor Hale was declared dead at 4:17 in the afternoon.
Evelyn did not believe it.
She had learned what an unverified death could hide.
She demanded independent identification, continuous surveillance of the body, and DNA testing by three laboratories.
The results confirmed that the dead man was Victor.
Still, doubt remained.
Crown Nine had built an empire through replacements.
A body could be real and still tell the wrong story.
Reed denied knowing anything about Mara’s biological father.
“My father disappeared when I was nine.”
“What was his name?” Evelyn asked.
“Jonathan Reed.”
Priya searched archived records.
Jonathan Reed had worked as a security consultant for Evelyn’s father during the final years of his life.
He had been present at the Hale estate repeatedly.
His photograph showed a tall man with dark hair and pale gray eyes.
Mara had the same eyes.
DNA testing confirmed the connection.
Thomas Reed and Mara shared a paternal bloodline.
They were half-siblings.
Mara stared at Reed across the laboratory.
“You knew?”
“No.”
“You investigated my family for years.”
“I investigated Crown Nine.”
“And never saw my birth record?”
“It was sealed.”
“Everything is sealed until someone powerful needs it.”
Reed had no answer.
Evelyn remembered Jonathan.
He had been quiet, respectful, and often injured from assignments he refused to discuss.
During the final year of Evelyn’s father’s life, Jonathan had spent weeks at the estate.
Evelyn had been grieving after doctors told her she could no longer carry another child.
She had undergone fertility treatment in secret.
Victor had arranged the clinic.
The clinic belonged to Orison Family Services.
Mara had not been conceived through an affair.
She had been created through an embryo program using Evelyn’s genetic material and Jonathan Reed’s without either donor’s informed consent.
Victor had chosen the bloodline.
The Hale heir and the son of a Crown investigator.
Mara was not an accident.
She was designed to access two protected systems.
Daniel looked at Reed.
“Your father reached Saint Orison.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw his name in the memory archive.”
“Was he alive?”
“Eight years ago, yes.”
Reed turned pale.
“He may still be there.”
“Not beneath the island. They moved him to a place called North House.”
Priya checked the index extracted from Archive Zero.
North House appeared once beside a series of transportation codes.
The most recent code led to a private property in Maine.
Crown Nine’s seventy-two-hour suspension would end in nine hours.
They had only a narrow opportunity to reach the property before hidden security returned.
Evelyn should have remained in the hospital.
Her burned skin was infected in several places, and the injuries from Mara’s attack had reopened surgical wounds.
She refused treatment beyond antibiotics and pain medication.
“I lost eleven years with Daniel,” she said. “I will not lose another father while I am lying in bed.”
They traveled to Maine beneath heavy protection.
North House stood on a rocky peninsula surrounded by pine forest and ocean.
From the outside, it resembled an abandoned boarding school.
Inside, they found twenty-seven elderly men and women living in quiet rooms.
Some had been missing for decades.
Others had officially died.
None remembered their full identities.
Medical staff had fled before the team arrived.
In the basement, Reed found his father.
Jonathan sat beside a small window carving wooden birds.
He was seventy-three.
His hair was white.
A thin surgical scar crossed his forehead.
Reed entered alone at first.
“Dad?”
Jonathan looked up.
His expression showed no recognition.
Reed knelt in front of him.
“My name is Thomas.”
Jonathan smiled politely.
“That’s a good name.”
“It’s the name you gave me.”
The older man’s smile disappeared.
He touched Reed’s face.
For one second, something returned.
“Tommy?”
Reed began crying.
Jonathan pulled him into his arms.
The memory lasted less than a minute.
Then confusion returned.
Evelyn watched from the doorway with Mara.
Jonathan looked at her daughter.
His hand began trembling.
“Key child,” he whispered.
Mara stepped closer.
“Do you know me?”
“You were not supposed to be born.”
Evelyn stiffened.
Jonathan looked directly at her.
“Your father changed the embryo.”
“What does that mean?”
“The ninth bloodline was failing. He created a bridge.”
“A bridge to what?”
Jonathan pointed toward the black remote.
“To the first system.”
Daniel removed his metal disk.
Jonathan recoiled.
“No. Do not join them.”
“We already did,” Daniel said.
Jonathan stood abruptly.
“Then Crown Nine did not begin in 1974.”
The room became silent.
Jonathan grabbed Evelyn’s wrist with surprising strength.
“It began beneath Blackwater Abbey in 1919.”
“Why?”
“To preserve nine families after the war.”
“What is the first system?”
Jonathan looked terrified.
“Not what. Who.”
The lights flickered.
The seventy-two-hour suspension ended.
Every locked door in North House slammed shut.
A calm mechanical voice spoke through the building.
May you like
“Crown network restored.”
Jonathan whispered, “It knows Mara is alive.”
