Chapter 6 - The Child Exchanged in the Rain
Adrian laughed because the alternative was believing her.
“You are lying.”
Margaret’s tears fell.
“I wish I were.”
“I have photographs. Birth records.”
“Manufactured.”
“I remember my childhood.”
“You came to me when you were four.”
Adrian’s breathing changed.
“No.”
“You had been kept in a private facility. They told me your memories would be confused.”
“Who told you?”
Margaret looked toward Charles.
He still held the gun.
Adrian followed her gaze.
“You knew?”
Charles did not answer.
“You knew who I was?”
“I knew enough.”
“Who are my parents?”
Vanessa stepped between them.
“This is not the moment.”
Adrian shoved her aside.
“Who are my parents?”
Charles’s expression hardened.
“Your biological father was Julian Mercer.”
Elias’s father.
Adrian stared at him.
“And my mother?”
Margaret covered her mouth.
Charles lowered the gun slightly.
“Elena Hawthorne.”
Adrian’s knees nearly gave way.
Sebastian stood so quickly his chair fell backward.
“That is impossible.”
“It is not,” Charles said.
“Elena had one child.”
“She had twins.”
Sebastian’s face became gray.
Charles continued.
“The second infant was concealed from the Hawthorne family. Elena feared that if the Meridian Circle knew there were two heirs, neither would survive.”
Adrian looked between them.
“Elias is my brother?”
“Your twin,” Margaret whispered.
The word seemed to split the room.
Vanessa stepped away from Adrian.
Every expression on her face revealed calculation.
If Adrian was Elena’s son, he also possessed a claim to the Hawthorne trust.
But the leaked document named Gabriel Elias Hawthorne specifically.
Only the firstborn.
“Which one was born first?” Vanessa asked.
Adrian turned toward her.
“That is what concerns you?”
“I am trying to understand.”
“You are trying to calculate what I am worth.”
Sebastian moved toward Charles.
“Why was I never told?”
Charles raised the gun again.
“Because Elena did not trust you.”
“That is a lie.”
“She believed your obsession with succession had placed her in danger.”
“I would have protected both children.”
“You could not protect one.”
Sebastian’s cane trembled.
Charles smiled coldly.
“She was right about you.”
Adrian pressed both hands against his temples.
Fragments of memory surfaced.
A white room.
A boy on the other side of a glass wall.
A woman singing the same lullaby to both of them.
Then darkness.
“What facility?” Adrian asked.
Margaret shook her head.
“I never knew the name.”
“Where did you get me?”
“A service station outside the city. It was raining. Victor Sloane brought you.”
Adrian looked at Vanessa’s black pearl.
“That necklace belonged to him.”
Vanessa touched it instinctively.
“Father gave it to me.”
Charles looked at her.
“No, I did not.”
All eyes turned toward Vanessa.
She recovered quickly.
“Victor sent it before he disappeared.”
“Why?” Sebastian asked.
“He said it belonged to my mother.”
Charles’s face changed.
“Your mother never owned that necklace.”
Vanessa looked at him.
“Then who did?”
Margaret whispered, “Elena.”
Vanessa’s hand fell from the pearl.
Sebastian approached.
“That pearl contains a concealed compartment.”
Vanessa tried to unclasp it.
Sebastian seized her wrist.
“Do not move.”
Charles aimed the gun directly at him.
“Release my daughter.”
The door suddenly opened.
Sebastian’s security guard entered with two police officers.
Charles turned.
Adrian struck his arm.
The gun fired into the ceiling.
The officers tackled Charles.
Vanessa tore herself free and ran toward the balcony door.
Margaret caught her gown.
Vanessa spun and slapped her.
Adrian blocked the exit.
“Where are you going?”
“Move.”
“What is inside the necklace?”
“I do not know.”
“Then give it to me.”
She backed away.
The ballroom doors opened beyond the conference room.
Guests crowded the corridor, drawn by the gunshot.
Police secured Charles.
Sebastian reached toward Vanessa.
She pulled the necklace from her throat and threw it across the room.
The black pearl struck the wall.
It cracked.
A tiny object rolled beneath the table.
Adrian dropped to one knee and retrieved it.
A miniature data capsule.
Sebastian stared at it.
“The archive.”
Vanessa shook her head.
“I did not know.”
“Who gave you the necklace?” Adrian demanded.
“Victor.”
“When?”
“Three years ago.”
“Where is he?”
“I do not know.”
“You sent messages tonight.”
Vanessa’s eyes moved toward the crowd outside.
“I was instructed to watch Elias.”
“By whom?”
Before she could answer, the hotel’s public address system came alive.
A man’s voice filled the banquet hall.
“Good evening, Mr. Hawthorne.”
Sebastian stopped.
The voice was smooth, controlled, and electronically distorted.
“You have spent twenty-six years searching for Elena’s child. Tonight, you discovered there were two.”
Guests began recording.
The speaker continued.
“But there is a detail Charles Bellamy has failed to mention.”
Charles struggled against the officers.
“Turn that off!”
“The twins were not the only children born that night.”
Adrian looked at Sebastian.
Vanessa’s face became completely still.
“There was a third infant,” the voice announced.
May you like
“And only one of the three was Elena Hawthorne’s biological child.”
The speakers went silent.
