Chapter 13 - The Mother I Buried
My mother died when I was fourteen.
At least, that was what I had believed.
There was a grave.
A funeral.
A closed coffin.
Apparently I should have learned by now that closed coffins were suspicious things in my family.
The man on Brin’s phone gave me a location.
Hospital chapel.
I ran.
Royce followed.
Declan came too.
Inside, Brin sat in a wheelchair.
Alive.
Angry.
Our son was safely upstairs.
Beside Brin stood a woman in her late sixties.
Silver hair.
Straight posture.
Eyes I recognized before I recognized the face.
“Mom?”
Victoria Hale smiled.
“Hello, Cormack.”
I stopped moving.
Fourteen-year-old me appeared inside my chest.
The boy who had stood beside a grave while Patrick kept one hand on his shoulder.
The boy who had waited for a mother who never came home.
“You’re dead.”
“No.”
“You left me.”
Her expression broke.
“I was removed.”
“Same result.”
Brin watched quietly.
Good.
No excuses.
Victoria had discovered Patrick’s plan to hide Declan while presenting me as his legal heir.
Not because Patrick disliked me.
Because someone was hunting the true Hale bloodline.
Patrick wanted Declan invisible.
I became the decoy.
My mother objected.
Mateo discovered that.
He arranged her disappearance.
But unlike Laura, Victoria escaped years later.
“Then why didn’t you come back?”
“Because Patrick asked me not to.”
I laughed.
“You abandoned your son because a man asked?”
“No.”
She stepped closer.
“Because by then I knew who your biological father was.”
“Who?”
Her eyes moved toward the chapel door.
A man entered.
Tall.
Gray-haired.
Expensive coat.
Elias Vane went completely pale behind us.
“No.”
The man smiled at me.
“My name is Adrian Vale.”
I had heard it before.
Everyone in organized crime had.
Vale had built an international logistics empire, then disappeared from public life fifteen years ago.
Rumors said illness.
Others said prison.
Some said death.
He looked perfectly alive.
“My father?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I felt nothing.
Maybe I had reached my limit.
Then Brin spoke.
“Tell him the rest.”
Adrian looked at her with something close to respect.
Victoria closed her eyes.
“What rest?”
Adrian answered.
“Patrick didn’t take you from me.”
Pause.
“Your mother did.”
I looked at Victoria.
She didn’t deny it.
“Why?”
“Because Adrian was becoming dangerous.”
Adrian smiled without humor.
“I was dangerous.”
Victoria took me as an infant and asked Patrick to protect us.
Patrick gave me his name.
Raised me.
Loved me in the only brutal way he understood.
Then years later Adrian discovered I was alive.
The war that killed Patrick began partly because Adrian wanted his son returned.
My entire understanding shifted again.
“Did you kill Patrick?”
Adrian looked directly at me.
“No.”
“Who did?”
Silence.
Then Elias Vane lowered his head.
Brin saw it.
“Elias?”
He began crying.
“I did.”
Nobody moved.
Brin whispered:
“You told us Rafael did it.”
“No.”
“You let Cormack believe you were innocent.”
“I was trying to stop Patrick.”
“From what?”
Elias looked at me.
“From killing Adrian.”
Adrian’s expression changed.
Then Victoria whispered:
“That isn’t why Patrick died.”
Elias stared at her.
She reached into her coat.
Pulled out an old cassette recorder.
And pressed play.
Patrick Hale’s voice filled the chapel.
“Victoria, if you’re hearing this, Elias has probably done what I asked him to do.”
Elias staggered backward.
Patrick continued:
“My death was not murder.”
May you like
My blood turned cold.
“It was an execution I ordered myself.”
