Chapter 13 - The Child in the Tower
The service elevator stopped between floors.
The lights went out.
Emergency red lamps activated along the ceiling.
Russell reached for the control panel.
“Celeste cut primary power.”
Elara removed a narrow tool from her sleeve and opened the panel beneath the buttons.
Reed watched her.
“You were trained by Aegis.”
“So were you.”
“Not like this.”
“No,” Elara said. “You were trained to marry the target.”
Maren looked at Reed.
He did not deny it.
The elevator jerked upward.
Evelyn steadied Maren’s chair.
“What did she mean?”
Maren asked the question without looking at Reed.
He stared at the floor.
Celeste’s voice emerged through the elevator speaker.
“My son has never enjoyed confession.”
Elara tore the speaker wire free.
The voice stopped.
Maren looked at Reed.
“You knew who I was before we met.”
“I knew you were the Vale heir.”
“You knew Celeste wanted access to the company.”
“Yes.”
“And the accident?”
Reed closed his eyes.
Maren’s chest tightened.
“The brakes,” she said. “You tampered with them.”
“No.”
“But you knew.”
“I knew she planned to frighten you.”
“The car went through a barrier.”
“It was supposed to stop before the ridge.”
“You let me get inside.”
“I tried to cancel it.”
“When?”
“After you left.”
Maren laughed without humor.
“Your courage has extraordinary timing.”
The elevator moved again.
Elara asked, “Did Celeste know Maren was recovering?”
“No,” Reed said.
“You replaced her medication.”
“I reduced the dose.”
Maren looked at him.
“You want credit for poisoning me gently?”
“I was trying to keep her from increasing it.”
Evelyn gripped the back of Maren’s chair.
“You will answer for everything.”
Reed looked at her.
“So will you.”
The elevator reached the hidden fourth floor.
The doors opened onto a circular corridor inside the mansion tower.
Unlike the luxurious rooms below, this level was clinical.
White walls.
Steel doors.
Glass observation windows.
A low mechanical hum came from behind the walls.
Maren rolled forward.
“This was here the entire time?”
Reed nodded.
“Celeste renovated the tower before our wedding.”
They passed a room filled with computer servers.
Another contained locked cabinets.
The next held medical equipment.
At the end of the corridor stood door seventeen.
A biometric reader glowed beside it.
Elara pressed her hand to the scanner.
ACCESS DENIED.
She tried again.
Denied.
Maren said, “It accepted you in the cellar.”
“This lock uses a second factor.”
“What factor?”
Reed approached.
“Heartbeat pattern.”
Elara looked at him.
“Whose?”
“The original Vale heir.”
Maren placed her hand against the reader.
The screen scanned her palm.
Then a second sensor extended toward her wrist.
Her pulse registered.
ACCESS ACCEPTED.
Everyone stared.
The cellar recognized Elara’s fingerprint.
The tower recognized Maren’s heartbeat.
Two identities divided between them.
The door opened.
Inside stood cabinet twenty-two.
Beside it was a glass medical enclosure.
A boy sat on the floor within it.
He appeared to be about nine years old.
Dark hair fell across his forehead. He wore a simple gray shirt and trousers. A thin monitoring wire was attached to his wrist.
He looked up as they entered.
His eyes were the exact pale gray of Maren’s.
Evelyn covered her mouth.
Elara moved toward the glass.
The boy watched her without expression.
Maren approached more slowly.
“Who are you?” she asked.
The child tilted his head.
Then answered in a calm voice.
“Which one of you is Maren?”
Neither woman replied.
The boy stood.
He looked at Elara.
Then at Maren.
“You are both late.”
Reed moved toward the control console.
“We need to release him.”
Russell stopped him.
“What happens when the enclosure opens?”
“I don’t know.”
Elara examined the locks.
“This is not a prison.”
Maren looked around.
“What is it?”
“A quarantine room.”
Evelyn stepped toward the glass.
The boy’s eyes moved to her scar.
Then to Maren’s.
Then Elara’s.
“You came back,” he said.
Evelyn’s face drained of color.
“Do you know me?”
The boy placed his hand against the glass.
“You were in the recordings.”
“What recordings?”
“The ones they show me when I refuse to sleep.”
Maren’s anger sharpened.
“Who shows you?”
The child pointed upward.
A camera rotated toward them.
Celeste’s voice came through the room.
“His designation is Nine.”
Elara looked at the camera.
“You kept a child in this tower.”
“I kept an asset alive.”
Maren said, “What is he?”
Celeste laughed softly.
“The answer to every inheritance war your father created.”
The computer screens activated.
DNA diagrams appeared.
Images of Edmund Vale.
Evelyn Voss.
Silas Voss.
Celeste.
Maren.
Elara.
The boy.
Lines connected them in a web of genetic markers.
Reed stared at the results.
“This cannot be real.”
Celeste continued.
“Nine carries verified genetic material from every founding family involved in Aegis Crown.”
Maren looked at the child.
“You created him to control the companies.”
“No. I created nothing. I simply refused to destroy the work.”
Elara examined the data.
“These dates are wrong.”
Maren looked at the screen.
The embryo creation date was thirty-four years earlier.
Before Maren and Elara were born.
The boy was only nine.
Elara understood first.
“He was not the first.”
Celeste’s voice became almost proud.
“Very good.”
Maren looked at the rows of designation numbers.
One through eight were marked terminated, missing, or transferred.
Designation Nine remained active.
“What happened to the others?” she asked.
The boy answered.
“They grew up.”
Maren turned toward him.
The child pointed at the screen.
A new photograph appeared.
A group of eight adults standing outside the mansion.
One face had been scratched away.
The same man from the staircase photograph stood in the center.
Celeste said, “The first eight were never children to begin with.”
The boy looked toward the steel door behind them.
A locking mechanism engaged.
Gas began hissing from the ceiling vents.
Evelyn shouted, “Celeste!”
May you like
The child remained calm.
“She does this when visitors ask too many questions.”
