“Whatever you do, Marcus—do not let David leave that vault.”
The call ended.
Marcus slowly lowered his phone.
David watched him from across the room.
“What did Daniel say?”
Marcus glanced toward the locked vault door.
“He said you killed my father.”
For the first time that night, David Sterling looked afraid.
Not shocked.
Afraid.
Marcus noticed the difference.
“You knew.”
“Marcus, listen to me.”
“Did you kill him?”
David remained silent.
Marcus stepped closer.
“Answer me.”
“Yes.”
The word struck harder than Marcus expected.
His hands curled into fists.
“Who was he?”
“Jonathan Thorne.”
“My father died in a car accident.”
“No. That’s what your mother told you.”
Marcus grabbed David by the jacket.
“Why?”
David did not resist.
“Because Jonathan was going to expose my father.”
“Expose him for what?”
Before David could answer, the vault lights went out.
Darkness swallowed the room.
A gunshot exploded.
Marcus dropped instinctively.
Another shot.
Then silence.
Emergency lights flickered on.
David was lying against the wall.
Blood spread across his shirt.
“David!”
Marcus rushed to him.
One of the security officers lay unconscious near the door. The second was gone.
Marcus pressed his hand against David’s wound.
“Who shot you?”
David struggled to breathe.
“Not… important.”
“The hell it isn’t.”
David grabbed Marcus’s wrist.
“Patient 417.”
“What about it?”
“It wasn’t a patient.”
Marcus leaned closer.
“It was a project.”
---
At the hospital, Khloe’s second phone call came at 1:14 a.m.
She answered immediately.
“Dad?”
“No.”
Isabella.
Khloe sat upright.
“What do you want?”
“To help you.”
“You attacked me.”
“I grabbed you.”
“You pushed me.”
“No.”
Isabella’s voice trembled.
“That’s what they want you to remember.”
Khloe froze.
“What?”
“The missing three seconds weren’t deleted to protect me.”
“Then who?”
“To hide the person who entered the room behind you.”
Khloe remembered the argument.
Isabella grabbing her wrist.
The overturned chair.
Then—
Nothing.
A blank space.
“What happened in those three seconds?”
Isabella whispered:
“Someone injected you.”
Khloe touched her neck instinctively.
Her fingers found a tiny sore spot beneath her hairline.
Cold fear spread through her.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
Silence.
“Isabella.”
“They wanted you confused.”
“Who?”
Before Isabella could answer, someone knocked on Khloe’s hospital door.
Three slow knocks.
Isabella suddenly whispered:
“Don’t open it.”
Khloe stopped breathing.
“How do you know someone’s outside?”
No answer.
The handle began turning.
Khloe reached for the nurse-call button.
A man entered.
Dark suit.
Older face.
A scar running from his temple toward his ear.
Khloe stared at him.
“Dad?”
Daniel Sterling closed the door behind him.
For eleven years, Khloe had imagined this moment.
She expected to run to him.
Instead, she felt afraid.
Daniel looked at the phone in her hand.
“Who were you talking to?”
“Isabella.”
His expression hardened.
“You need to stop trusting her.”
Khloe laughed bitterly.
“I don’t trust anyone anymore.”
“Good.”
He approached the bed.
Khloe moved backward.
Daniel stopped.
That hurt him.
“I never wanted this for you.”
“Then tell me the truth.”
“I will.”
“All of it?”
He hesitated.
Khloe shook her head.
“Even now.”
Daniel reached inside his jacket.
Khloe tensed.
He removed an old photograph.
Four young men stood outside Sterling Medical Center.
Daniel.
David.
Jonathan Thorne.
And a fourth man Khloe did not recognize.
Daniel pointed to him.
“Everything started with him.”
“Who is he?”
Daniel looked at his daughter.
“Dr. Adrian Vale.”
“And Project 417?”
Daniel’s face darkened.
“It was his.”
---
Inside the bank vault, David’s breathing was becoming weaker.
Marcus called emergency services while keeping pressure on the wound.
“Tell me what Project 417 was.”
David shook his head.
“You need to get Khloe out of the hospital.”
“Why?”
“Because Sterling Medical was never just a hospital.”
Marcus stared at him.
David forced the words out.
“417 was an experimental identity program.”
“What does that mean?”
“Medical records. DNA. Birth certificates.”
Marcus felt cold.
“They could change who someone was on paper.”
David nodded.
Marcus looked at the fake DNA report.
“My identity?”
David closed his eyes.
“Marcus…”
“What?”
“You were the first child.”
Marcus stopped breathing.
“The first child what?”
David opened his eyes.
“The first child whose identity Project 417 successfully replaced.”
Marcus stared at him.
“Then Marcus Thorne isn’t my real name?”
David’s answer came as barely more than a whisper.
“No.”
Sirens sounded somewhere above them.
Marcus looked down at the medical bracelet from Box 417.
For the first time, he turned it over.
There was another name engraved on the back.
Not Marcus Thorne.
Not Sterling.
A name he had never seen before.
**ADRIAN VALE JR.**