Chapter 13 - Emma’s Father Came Home
Thomas Lawson looked older than the dead man Emma remembered.
That was the cruelest part.
Five missing years existed on his face.
Gray hair.
Deeper lines.
A slight limp.
Emma stood in Richard’s drawing room and stared at her father.
He did not approach.
Good.
He understood at least that much.
“Hi, Em.”
She slapped him.
The sound surprised everyone except Emma.
Thomas accepted it.
She slapped him again.
Then began crying.
“You were alive.”
“Yes.”
“You let me bury you.”
“Yes.”
“You let me think I had no parents left.”
His eyes filled.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I was afraid.”
“At least don’t say you did it for me.”
Thomas swallowed.
“I did it partly for you.”
Emma laughed through tears.
“Of course.”
“And partly because I was a coward.”
That stopped her.
No heroic rewriting.
Thomas told the story.
Margaret had discovered Walter’s original model.
After she died from ovarian cancer, Thomas found her hidden files.
He contacted Richard anonymously.
Richard’s office dismissed him.
He contacted Gabriel.
Gabriel listened.
Together they monitored Nora.
When Nora arranged Emma’s architecture contract, Thomas wanted to pull Emma out.
Gabriel argued that abrupt interference would alert Walter.
Thomas agreed.
A decision he regretted.
“Did you arrange my relationship with Damon?”
“No.”
“Did Gabriel?”
“No. He allowed the gala because he wanted to observe Nora. Damon approaching you was real.”
“Did you know Nora encouraged him afterward?”
“Not until later.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Thomas lowered his eyes.
“Because by then you loved him.”
Emma stared.
“And that made truth less important?”
“I thought it made truth more dangerous.”
“There it is.”
Thomas nodded.
“I know.”
The family disease was not genetic.
It was paternalism.
Everyone feared what truth might do, so they controlled who received it.
Thomas had become infected without being a Mercer.
Gabriel too.
Beatrice too.
Power did not require blood.
Only certainty that you knew better.
Thomas faked his death after Walter’s people followed him.
He believed disappearing protected Emma.
Gabriel maintained contact.
“What did Gabriel ask you to do?”
“Watch Beatrice.”
Thomas discovered Beatrice had become the editor.
He warned Gabriel.
Gabriel confronted her.
They temporarily collaborated against Walter.
Then Gabriel realized Beatrice intended to use a reproductive reveal.
He asked Thomas to stop her if he died.
“Did you?”
“I tried.”
“How?”
Thomas hacked Haven’s scheduling system.
He delayed Emma’s retrieval twice.
Emma remembered.
Equipment problems.
Unexpected lab closure.
Her body had endured extra medication because Thomas secretly interfered.
She stared at him.
“You manipulated my treatment too.”
“Yes.”
“Did anyone in this story ever consider speaking to me?”
Thomas cried.
“No.”
The answer was devastating because it was true.
Everyone had turned Emma into the center of a plan while excluding Emma from it.
Thomas eventually learned Beatrice intended to substitute Gabriel’s sample.
He tried to replace the vial.
But when he entered Haven, Nora had already been there.
Then Beatrice.
Then Samuel.
Too many secret saboteurs.
Thomas could not determine which sample was where.
He aborted.
“Why didn’t you stop the transfer?”
“I sent an alert to Charles.”
Charles never received it.
Beatrice intercepted.
Again.
Thomas then sent an anonymous warning to Emma.
She never received it.
Why?
Damon had changed Emma’s email password after a phishing attempt and set a filter that routed unknown medical messages to spam.
Not malicious.
Consequential.
A thousand small decisions converged.
Emma felt exhausted.
“Did you send Damon the false trust memo?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I thought if he believed the baby threatened his inheritance, he would contact whoever recruited him into Continuity.”
“Instead he tried to control me.”
“Yes.”
“You used me as bait.”
“Yes.”
“I could have fallen.”
Thomas began crying.
“I know.”
“The baby could have been hurt.”
“I know.”
“Your apology doesn’t fix that.”
“I know.”
She believed his remorse.
She did not forgive him.
Not yet.
Maybe never fully.
Both truths could coexist.
Thomas gave Emma the last file Gabriel sent before his death.
Not about Walter.
Not Beatrice.
About Emma.
Gabriel had recorded a message.
“I owe Emma Lawson the truth.”
Emma watched.
Gabriel looked tired.
“I let her meet Damon because I thought I could observe Walter without involving her.”
He shook his head.
“That sentence is nonsense. Observation was involvement.”
Emma felt something loosen.
At least he had realized.
“I told myself I was protecting her by not telling her.”
A bitter smile.
“That is the language every Mercer man uses before making someone else’s choice.”
Richard looked away.
Damon too.
Gabriel continued.
“If I live through tomorrow, I am telling her everything.”
He never did.
“If I don’t, Thomas must.”
Thomas whispered:
“I failed.”
Yes.
Gabriel then said something unexpected.
“Emma is not important because Walter’s model selected her.”
Emma leaned closer.
“She is important because she is the first person in this chain who never consented to the chain.”
A pause.
“If the truth ever comes out, let her decide what happens next.”
Not Richard.
Not Damon.
Not Claire.
Emma.
Gabriel had finally understood consent.
Too late to deliver it personally.
But the message mattered.
Then Gabriel revealed why he had preserved his own reproductive sample as bait.
It contained a synthetic genetic watermark.
Samuel stared.
“What?”
Gabriel had worked with a forensic geneticist.
A harmless noncoding marker was added to the stored sample so any unauthorized use could be traced definitively.
Emma’s baby inherited part of it?
They tested.
Yes.
That meant the exact sample Beatrice used was unquestionably Gabriel’s bait vial.
No more uncertainty about chain.
And the watermark encoded an identifier.
Not random.
A file number.
Mara entered it into Gabriel’s archive.
A video opened.
Walter meeting Beatrice.
Nora nearby.
Dated two months before Gabriel died.
The audio revealed something none had admitted.
Walter knew Beatrice was editing his plan.
Beatrice knew Walter knew.
Their supposed secret war had partly been theater.
They were collaborating.
Emma stared at Beatrice.
“You lied.”
Beatrice closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To make my motives seem cleaner.”
There it was.
She had confessed much.
But still curated herself.
Walter and Beatrice had agreed on one thing:
The Mercer secrets should explode.
They disagreed on donor.
Walter wanted Jonathan.
Beatrice wanted Gabriel.
But they cooperated in building the opportunity.
Nora thought she was deceiving Walter.
Walter knew.
Samuel thought he was sabotaging Walter.
Walter monitored him.
Thomas thought he was watching Beatrice.
Beatrice knew.
The conspirators were not isolated.
They were layers of people watching one another.
Gabriel alone had begun to map the whole network.
The video continued.
Walter said:
“Gabriel will figure it out.”
Beatrice answered:
“Then we make sure he doesn’t stop it.”
Claire stiffened.
“Did they kill him?”
The next exchange:
Walter: “I won’t hurt my son.”
Beatrice: “Neither will I.”
Walter: “Then we need him distracted.”
Beatrice: “Damon.”
Emma looked at Damon.
They intentionally intensified Gabriel and Damon’s financial conflict.
Leaked Atlas information.
Provoked their fight.
Made Gabriel focus on Damon.
That explained why Gabriel recorded that Damon was being framed.
Then Beatrice said:
“If Gabriel gets on that helicopter tomorrow, Walter, remove the tracker.”
Walter stared.
“I didn’t put it there.”
Silence.
Everyone watching the video froze.
Beatrice whispered:
“Then who did?”
The recording ended.
Walter had admitted installing surveillance later.
But here, before the crash, he denied the tracker.
Had he lied then?
Or lied now?
Mara confronted him.
Walter stared at the video.
Then confessed.
“I put a tracker on Gabriel’s car.”
“Not helicopter?”
“No.”
Nora had ordered telemetry equipment for him, but Walter claimed it was intended for vehicles.
Someone else installed part of it on the helicopter.
Who?
The equipment had passed through Mercer Biomedical security.
One person signed the transfer.
Richard.
His signature.
Again.
Richard stared.
“I don’t remember.”
Mara found the underlying request.
Routine asset tracking approval.
Richard signed a batch of twenty-seven security upgrades.
One line authorized remote telemetry for executive aircraft.
Real signature.
Different understanding.
Who wrote the request?
Beatrice.
She stared.
“I authorized tracking. Not flight control.”
“Who added remote control capability?”
Samuel checked technical logs.
An engineer.
Name:
ERIC HALE.
No one recognized it.
Thomas did.
“That was Gabriel.”
Everyone stared.
Gabriel used Eric Hale as an alias during internal security testing.
Meaning Gabriel himself added remote-access capability to his helicopter.
Why?
His final message explained.
He suspected Walter was tracking him.
He installed a countermeasure allowing remote shutdown if the aircraft was stolen or compromised.
The system that killed him had been his own security tool.
Someone triggered it.
Who possessed the activation key?
Gabriel.
And one backup recipient.
Thomas.
Emma stared at her father.
Thomas went white.
“I never activated it.”
Mara checked.
The command came from Thomas’s encrypted device.
Thomas shook his head.
“No.”
Emma’s heart broke all over again.
“Where was the device?”
Thomas closed his eyes.
“In my apartment.”
“Who had access?”
“One person.”
“Who?”
He looked at Emma.
“Your mother’s sister.”
Emma frowned.
“My mother didn’t have a sister.”
Thomas whispered:
“That’s what Margaret told you.”
Another hidden relative.
Another family secret.
Her name was Lydia Lawson.
And according to Thomas, Lydia had worked beside Walter from the very beginning.
May you like
The oldest surviving participant in the entire Continuity project had finally entered the story.
And she was Emma’s aunt.
