Chapter 15 - The Fourth Person in the Ballroom
The old DeLuca estate stood beyond the northern edge of the city, hidden behind iron gates and miles of dark woodland.
No one had lived there since Anthony DeLuca’s death.
Margaret had ordered the house sealed after Elena’s fire, though the two events occurred in different places. She claimed the estate held too many memories.
Now Grace wondered whether it held evidence.
Dominic drove.
Lucas sat beside him without a weapon.
Grace remained in the rear seat, holding the camera beneath her coat.
Rain struck the windshield.
The estate appeared through the trees just before midnight.
It was enormous and nearly dark.
Only the ballroom windows glowed.
Dominic stopped near the marble steps.
“This is too easy.”
Grace looked toward the entrance.
“They want us inside.”
Lucas studied the roofline.
“No visible guards.”
“That means there are hidden ones,” Dominic said.
They entered through the main doors.
Music played somewhere inside.
The same waltz performed at the Founders’ Ball.
Candles lined the central hall, creating a path toward the ballroom.
Portraits of the DeLuca family watched from the walls.
Anthony.
Margaret.
A young Dominic.
Grace stopped before Dominic’s childhood portrait.
The boy looked nothing like the man beside her.
Different eyes.
Different shape of the mouth.
She had never noticed because people saw what names instructed them to see.
The ballroom doors stood open.
Margaret sat in her wheelchair beneath the central chandelier.
Victoria stood behind her.
Judge Conrad Vale waited near the fireplace.
And beside him was an elderly man in a white medical coat.
Dr. Sebastian Vale.
Alive.
Grace recognized him from the hospital recording.
His hair was white now, his body thin, but his eyes were unchanged.
Lucas stopped walking.
Sebastian smiled.
“My most successful protector.”
Lucas’s face showed disgust.
“I am not your son.”
“Biologically, no. Structurally, you are much more valuable.”
Dominic moved toward Margaret.
Victoria pressed a gun to her neck.
“Not another step.”
Grace looked around.
“Where are the guards?”
Sebastian answered.
“There are none.”
“You expect us to believe that?”
“I no longer need them.”
Conrad looked furious.
“This was not our agreement, Sebastian.”
Sebastian ignored him.
Grace realized the brothers were not united.
Victoria was not loyal to either of them.
Each person in the room had arrived with a separate plan.
Dominic held up Anthony’s will.
“You wanted this?”
Sebastian smiled.
“The paper is irrelevant. The clause has already been activated.”
“By whom?”
“By the verified surviving child.”
Grace looked at Lucas.
He shook his head.
Sebastian continued.
“The DeLuca trust recognized its heir at eleven forty-seven tonight.”
Dominic checked his phone.
Every corporate authentication system had logged him out.
His face hardened.
“Who controls the company?”
Sebastian looked toward the ballroom’s upper balcony.
A figure stood behind the railing.
At first, Grace saw only the outline of a man in a black tuxedo.
Then he stepped into the chandelier light.
Dominic stared upward.
The man had his face.
Not merely similar features.
The same face.
The same height.
The same controlled expression.
Even the same scar near the left eyebrow from a childhood riding accident.
Grace looked at the Dominic standing beside her.
Then at the man above.
Margaret began to sob.
“No.”
The second Dominic descended the staircase.
“Hello, Mother.”
Margaret recoiled.
The Dominic beside Grace stepped forward.
“Who are you?”
The other man smiled.
“The question you should ask is who are you?”
Sebastian watched them with pride.
“The public Dominic DeLuca was always temporary.”
Grace looked at Margaret.
“You knew there were two?”
Margaret shook her head violently.
“No. I swear.”
The second Dominic reached the ballroom floor.
He looked at Grace.
“Elena called me Daniel.”
The name struck something inside her.
A memory.
Elena standing in their apartment kitchen, speaking softly on the telephone.
Daniel is still alive.
Grace had believed she was talking about a friend.
Daniel moved closer.
“She found me six months before the fire.”
“Where?”
“In another Vale facility.”
“Why didn’t she bring you home?”
“She tried.”
Sebastian’s smile disappeared.
Daniel continued.
“She believed I was the infant taken from Saint Catherine’s. She believed the man raised as Dominic was one of Sebastian’s later continuity subjects.”
Dominic looked at Sebastian.
“Is that true?”
Sebastian spread his hands.
“Truth is an imprecise word.”
Lucas moved toward him.
Victoria tightened her grip on the gun.
“Stop.”
Grace studied Daniel.
He wore Dominic’s face, but not his eyes.
His eyes were colder.
“What happened the night Elena died?” she asked.
Daniel looked at her.
“She chose you.”
“What does that mean?”
“She had enough evidence to rescue only one child from the network.”
Grace felt the floor disappear beneath her.
“You were at the apartment.”
“Yes.”
“The man on the recording.”
“No. That was an earlier subject.”
“How many are there?”
Daniel glanced at Lucas.
“Fewer every year.”
Dominic held up the camera.
“You activated the inheritance.”
“Yes.”
“You stole the vault letter.”
“Yes.”
“You kidnapped Margaret?”
Daniel looked toward Victoria.
“That was not my decision.”
Victoria’s expression tightened.
The alliances were breaking.
Conrad stepped forward.
“Sebastian, end this. Give Margaret back and transfer the trust to a neutral administrator.”
Sebastian laughed.
“You still believe institutions can contain what we created.”
“You created suffering.”
“I created survival.”
“You created children without identities.”
“I created children without inherited weakness.”
Grace’s anger erupted.
“You created prisoners.”
Sebastian looked at her with fascination.
“And yet you are extraordinary.”
“I am not yours.”
“No. Elena ensured that.”
The lights flickered.
Lucas looked toward the control room.
“Someone else is in the house.”
Daniel’s smile vanished.
Sebastian turned toward the dark windows.
A red warning light began flashing above the ballroom doors.
An automated voice announced that the estate security system had been armed.
Steel barriers dropped over every exit.
Victoria spun toward Conrad.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
The chandeliers went dark.
Emergency lights illuminated the ballroom in deep red.
A new voice came through the speakers.
A woman’s voice.
Grace knew it immediately.
Elena.
“If all of you are gathered in this room, then Sebastian has finally revealed Daniel.”
Grace stared upward.
The recording continued.
“Do not allow either Dominic to leave.”
Both men looked toward the speakers.
Margaret whispered, “Elena knew.”
“Yes,” the recording said, as though answering her. “I knew there were two. But there were never supposed to be two.”
A section of the ballroom floor opened.
A hidden lift began rising from beneath the marble.
Sebastian stepped backward.
For the first time, he looked afraid.
Inside the lift stood a glass medical chamber covered in frost.
A human figure was visible within it.
Grace could not see the face.
Elena’s voice continued.
“Sebastian lied about the infant who died at Saint Catherine’s.”
The frost began to melt.
Dominic stared at the chamber.
Daniel moved beside him.
They looked like mirrored versions of the same man.
“The original child survived,” Elena said.
Inside the chamber, the figure opened his eyes.
Margaret screamed.
Sebastian ran toward the balcony.
The ballroom doors remained sealed.
Grace approached the glass.
The man inside lifted one hand and pressed it against the chamber wall.
A crescent-shaped mark was visible beneath his wrist.
Then the estate speakers crackled.
Elena’s recording delivered one final warning.
“Grace, when he wakes, do not tell him your name.”
The glass chamber unlocked.
The man inside smiled directly at her.
May you like
And whispered through the opening door,
“I already know who you are.”
