Chapter 12 - The Grandfather Who Lied
Eli didn't see the video.
I made sure of that.
Some truths can wait until a child has arms around him.
Hannah couldn't.
She watched Frank's confession three times.
Then Silas transmitted live.
Frank had worked with the Bennett network decades earlier.
Not willingly at first.
Eventually willingly enough.
He helped create false identities for children.
One was Hannah.
Margaret Bennett had been Silas's younger sister.
She tried exposing him.
Silas arranged her disappearance.
Frank took baby Hannah and raised her.
Part guilt.
Part love.
Eventually love became real.
But Silas never released him.
Years later, when Hannah discovered the archive, Frank warned Silas.
That was how she was captured.
Hannah stared at the screen.
“You gave me to him.”
Frank cried.
“I thought he'd scare you.”
“You knew him.”
“I thought I could control it.”
“You knew him!”
Her scream echoed through the facility.
Silas looked delighted.
This was what he did.
Turned families against themselves.
Then he offered Frank a deal.
Help lure Dante into West Virginia and Silas would finally leave Eli alone.
Frank agreed.
The private meeting that brought me here?
Frank helped create the fake business contact.
The road?
Selected because Goliath frequently traveled nearby.
My burial?
Frank didn't know that part.
When Eli found me, Frank genuinely returned to rescue me.
The plan broke.
Silas adapted.
I looked at Frank through the screen.
“You saved me after helping bring me here.”
“I didn't know he'd bury you.”
“That's supposed to matter?”
“No.”
At least he knew.
Then Eli entered behind us.
Too late.
He saw his grandfather.
“Grandpa?”
Frank's face collapsed.
“Eli.”
The boy moved closer to the monitor.
“Why aren't you here?”
Nobody answered.
Frank did.
“Because Grandpa made a terrible mistake.”
“Come home.”
Three words.
Frank began sobbing.
Silas looked irritated.
“Enough.”
He reached toward the camera.
Then Frank grabbed him.
The feed shook.
Marco shouted.
Gunshot.
Screen black.
Hannah screamed.
We traced the transmission.
Old courthouse.
Hollow Falls.
Silas had returned to the town center.
Why?
Because beneath the courthouse was the original county records vault.
Birth certificates.
Adoptions.
Deaths.
The first documents his father manipulated decades ago.
Silas planned to burn everything.
Destroy the paper trail before federal investigators could compare it to the digital archive.
We arrived to smoke.
Agents surrounded the building.
Frank stumbled from a side door.
Blood on his shoulder.
Alive.
Hannah ran toward him.
Then stopped.
Love and betrayal collided.
Frank didn't ask forgiveness.
“Silas is downstairs.”
“Why?”
“He has the original adoption ledger.”
Isabella's true records.
Elena's disappearance.
Eli's birth.
Everything.
Then Frank grabbed my sleeve.
“He has something else.”
“What?”
“A death certificate.”
“Whose?”
Frank looked at Eli.
“Dante Moretti.”
Mine.
Dated tomorrow.
Silas hadn't merely planned my murder.
He had already prepared the legal aftermath.
And the document was signed by a Moretti family physician.
Someone still inside my organization.
Someone close enough to certify my body without seeing it.
Luca.
Marco.
Sofia.
Only three people had that access.
Then my phone buzzed.
A message from Luca.
DON'T TRUST MARCO.
A second later, Marco's phone buzzed.
He looked at it.
His face changed.
“What?”
He showed me.
A message from Luca's number.
DANTE KNOWS. KILL HIM NOW.
May you like
Someone was trying to make us destroy each other.
And from somewhere beneath the courthouse, Silas Bennett was watching to see whether it worked.
