Chapter 14 - The Protector’s Lie
Every weapon in the room turned toward Lucas Grant.
He remained beside the computer.
Calm.
Too calm.
Dominic stepped between him and Grace.
“Move away from the table.”
Lucas did not move.
Harold pressed himself against the lockers.
“That’s impossible. He would have been a teenager.”
Grace looked at the frozen image.
The man in Elena’s apartment had Lucas’s face, but he appeared the same age Lucas appeared now.
Not younger.
Exactly the same.
Dominic noticed it.
“The recording is eleven years old.”
Lucas slowly raised his hands.
“That man is not me.”
Grace stared at the scar beneath his chin.
The man on the video had the same scar.
“Then explain his face.”
“I can’t.”
“Your father?” Dominic asked.
“No.”
“Brother?”
“No.”
Grace remembered the third infant.
The experimental markers.
The facility where Elena had found her.
“You were part of the program.”
Lucas looked at her.
“I was born in 1988.”
“Can you prove it?”
“My military records.”
“Records can be changed.”
Dominic took Lucas’s weapon.
“You have served as my security director for nine years.”
“Yes.”
“You had access to my biometrics.”
“Yes.”
“You could have opened the vault.”
“I did not.”
Harold spoke from the floor.
“My father’s notes mentioned replicas.”
Grace turned.
“What replicas?”
“Sebastian called them continuity subjects. Children developed from shared donor material.”
Dominic’s expression hardened.
“Clones?”
“Not exactly. Genetically related test subjects engineered to carry similar immune markers.”
Lucas looked genuinely disturbed.
“I have never heard of this.”
Grace approached him.
“What is your earliest memory?”
He said nothing.
“Answer.”
“A training compound.”
“How old were you?”
“Six.”
“Where?”
“Virginia.”
“Who were your parents?”
“I was told they died overseas.”
“Photographs?”
“No.”
Grace touched the scar beneath her shoulder.
“Do you have a mark?”
Lucas’s face closed.
Dominic ordered him to remove his jacket.
Lucas refused.
Dominic took one step forward.
“Do not make me repeat myself.”
After several seconds, Lucas removed the jacket and unbuttoned the upper part of his shirt.
Behind his right shoulder was a crescent-shaped surgical mark.
Grace’s mouth went dry.
Lucas looked at it through the locker room mirror.
“I was told it came from childhood surgery.”
Harold began laughing.
The sound was weak and frightened.
“The third child was never one person.”
Dominic looked at him.
“What does that mean?”
“My father’s notes said Sebastian continued the program for decades. The hospital infants were templates. He created more subjects.”
Grace thought of the private facility.
“Like me.”
“And Lucas.”
Harold nodded.
“Possibly.”
Lucas’s voice became cold.
“You expect us to trust notes from a corrupt detective?”
“No,” Harold said. “Trust Elena.”
He returned to the recording.
The man with Lucas’s face moved toward the burning doorway.
Elena called after him.
“You cannot replace everyone.”
The man stopped.
“That was never the purpose.”
“What was?”
“To ensure the inheritance can never leave the program.”
The recording cut to black.
Dominic looked at Anthony’s will.
“The surviving child inherits everything.”
Grace understood.
“But if several people can pass the medical verification, Sebastian can choose whichever one he controls.”
Harold nodded.
“The perfect heir.”
Lucas sat slowly.
For the first time, he appeared shaken.
“Why place me near Dominic?”
“To observe him,” Grace said. “To protect him until the inheritance clause could be activated.”
Dominic stared at Lucas.
“Did you know?”
“No.”
“Were you ordered to work for me?”
“I was recruited by a private security firm after the military.”
“Which firm?”
Lucas named it.
Harold closed his eyes.
“It belonged to a Vale holding company.”
Silence followed.
Lucas had built his life around protecting Dominic.
Now every decision he had made could have been part of someone else’s design.
Grace felt an unexpected sympathy for him.
Her own memories suddenly seemed artificial.
Dates altered.
Records created.
A mother who had found her in a facility.
Perhaps even the name Grace had been given because Elena hoped she would become something other than what Sebastian intended.
Dominic’s phone rang.
The caller identification showed Margaret DeLuca.
But Margaret was upstairs under guard.
Dominic answered on speaker.
Victoria’s voice filled the room.
“Bring Grace to the old DeLuca estate.”
Grace looked at Dominic.
“You are not with Margaret?”
“She is here.”
Margaret’s voice came faintly through the line.
“Dominic, don’t come.”
A sharp sound followed.
Victoria spoke again.
“Midnight. No police. Bring the camera, the will, and Lucas.”
“Why Lucas?”
“Because Sebastian wants his son back.”
Lucas closed his eyes.
Grace looked at the clock.
They had less than three hours.
Dominic ended the call.
Harold tried to stand.
“You cannot go.”
Dominic handed him to a guard.
“No one is taking my mother again.”
Lucas buttoned his shirt.
“You should restrain me.”
Dominic looked at him.
“Are you planning to betray us?”
“No.”
“Then you are coming.”
Grace placed Elena’s camera inside her uniform pocket.
“What about the DNA results?”
Dominic gathered the contradictory reports.
“They prove nothing.”
Grace looked at the frozen video of Elena.
“Maybe that is the point. We keep searching for biological family when the people who chose us matter more.”
Dominic’s expression softened for a moment.
Then Lucas opened a hidden file on Harold’s drive.
A list of active continuity subjects appeared.
Most were identified only by numbers.
Three names were visible.
Grace Miller.
Lucas Grant.
Dominic DeLuca.
May you like
Beside Dominic’s name was a status code.
Original subject deceased.
