Chapter 13 - Rebecca Comes Home
Rebecca had escaped police supervision during a transfer.
Help from inside.
Again.
She reached the hospital using credentials Charles's network had created years earlier.
But she didn't take Maya.
Leo stopped her.
Six years old.
Broken leg.
Terrified.
He pressed the emergency call button and screamed until nurses came running.
By the time I arrived, Rebecca was cornered inside the pediatric wing.
Maya hid behind Leo's bed.
Rebecca stood ten feet away.
No weapon.
No escape.
Just a mother—or stepmother, depending on which child—staring at the consequences of everything she'd done.
“Thomas.”
I moved between her and the children.
“Don't.”
Her face broke.
“I came for Maya.”
“You're never taking either of them again.”
“She isn't safe.”
“From whom?”
“Charles.”
“He's in custody.”
Rebecca laughed.
Then I understood.
“Charles isn't the Trustee?”
“No.”
Marianne had lied.
Or misunderstood.
Charles corrupted part of the network.
But someone else had been directing Rebecca recently.
“Who?”
She looked at Leo.
Then Maya.
“I don't know.”
I almost lost patience.
Rebecca pulled a phone from her dress.
Messages.
Instructions.
Photographs of the children taken from distances.
At school.
At parks.
At Ethan's funeral.
At my mansion.
Whoever sent them had watched us for months.
One photograph showed me kneeling beside Leo at the hospital.
Taken that morning.
The sender was still close.
Then Rebecca showed the final message.
BRING MAYA TO THOMAS. HE'LL UNDERSTAND.
“Why Maya?”
Rebecca began crying.
“Because she isn't Ethan's daughter.”
Silence.
I stared at her.
“Whose?”
“I don't know.”
That made no sense.
“You gave birth to her.”
“Yes.”
“Then—”
“IVF.”
Ethan and Rebecca had struggled to conceive again.
They used embryos through a private fertility clinic.
Rebecca believed Ethan's sample was used.
Months ago, Charles told her it wasn't.
Another manipulation.
Another child turned into paperwork.
“Who is her biological father?”
“I don't know.”
But someone did.
The Trustee.
Maya started crying behind me.
I hated all of them in that moment.
Every adult who thought blood could determine who deserved a child.
I crouched beside her.
“Come here.”
She climbed into my arms.
“Am I going back?”
“No.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
Rebecca closed her eyes.
Maybe she understood then that she had lost something money couldn't restore.
Ramirez arrested her.
Before leaving, Rebecca looked at me.
“The basement.”
“What?”
“I didn't build it.”
“Who did?”
“Ethan.”
My brother had already admitted it was originally a safe room.
But Rebecca added:
“He built it after someone tried taking Leo when he was a baby.”
I turned toward Ethan.
He had just entered.
His face changed.
“You never told me that.”
“I couldn't.”
“Who tried taking him?”
Ethan looked toward Dominic.
Dominic froze.
“No.”
Not Dominic.
Ethan continued staring behind him.
At someone who had entered with us.
Marianne Vale.
Ethan whispered:
“She did.”
Marianne didn't deny it.
May you like
Instead, she looked at Maya in my arms and said:
“Because the same man who created Maya wanted Leo too.”
