Marcus stared at his father's name until the letters seemed to stop meaning anything.
**THOMAS VANCE.**
Twenty-six years dead.
A man Marcus remembered mostly through fragments: the smell of coffee before sunrise, rough hands tying fishing knots, a deep voice telling him never to accuse someone until he could prove it.
And now that dead man had Caroline's surgeon.
"He's dead," Marcus whispered.
Adrian Vale looked at him with something dangerously close to pity.
"No."
Marcus raised his gun.
"Say that again."
"Your father survived."
"You told me he came here twenty years ago."
"He did."
"I was thirteen when he died."
"Then the body your family buried wasn't his."
Marcus laughed once.
It sounded broken.
"Another fake corpse?"
Nobody answered.
That was answer enough.
Caroline stepped between Marcus and Adrian.
"We have thirty minutes."
Marcus looked at her.
"Evelyn is alive."
"For now."
He read the message again.
**BRING ME CAROLINE MERCER.**
"He's asking for you specifically."
Caroline nodded.
"Which means we go."
"No."
"Marcus—"
"No."
His voice was harder now.
"My father, if this really is my father, has spent decades hiding while people were kidnapped, murdered, burned and erased. I'm not handing you to him."
Behind them, Rebecca worked desperately to control Juliette's bleeding.
Juliette's skin had become frighteningly pale.
"We need a surgeon," Rebecca said.
Caroline looked at the screen showing Evelyn unconscious.
"And we have one."
Marcus understood.
The hostage wasn't random.
Thomas Vance had taken the one person they needed most.
Caroline checked the message.
An address followed.
She recognized the area.
"Saint Catherine's."
Lillian looked up sharply.
"The hospital?"
"The abandoned hospital."
The same place where Caroline's birth records had been altered.
The place where Rebecca had given birth.
The place where the lie had begun.
Adrian whispered, "Of course."
Caroline turned.
"What?"
"Thomas always believed the truth should end where it started."
Marcus looked at him.
"You knew him well?"
"Better than you want to hear right now."
"Try me."
Adrian hesitated.
"Thomas wasn't investigating my disappearance."
Marcus frowned.
"Then what was he investigating?"
"Douglas."
Douglas, standing near the medical-room doorway, gave a bitter smile.
"Finally."
Everyone looked at him.
He pressed a cloth against his wounded shoulder.
"Thomas Vance was the first person who understood what was really happening."
Caroline glared at him.
"And what was really happening?"
Douglas looked around the room.
"None of us controlled the archive."
Adrian stiffened.
"Don't."
Douglas ignored him.
"We thought we did. Adrian built it. I stole portions of it. Holloway tried to seize it. Rebecca tried to burn it."
He looked at Marcus.
"But Thomas copied it."
Marcus's expression changed.
"My father?"
"Every name. Every account. Every recording."
Holloway finally spoke.
"And then he disappeared."
Caroline understood.
"Because everyone wanted what he had."
"Exactly."
Douglas nodded.
Marcus lowered his weapon slightly.
"If my father had evidence that could expose all of you, why didn't he?"
Adrian answered.
"Because exposing the archive wouldn't only destroy guilty people."
"What does that mean?"
"It contained informants. Witnesses. undercover officers. Victims. Children. People whose lives depended on their identities remaining hidden."
Marcus's face hardened.
"So he buried the truth."
"No," Adrian said. "He divided it."
Caroline touched the scar beneath her ear.
"The storage device."
Adrian nodded.
"One piece."
Douglas looked at Caroline.
"Your piece contains the succession records."
"And the others?"
Nobody answered.
Marcus slowly looked toward his father’s message.
"Thomas has them."
---
They reached Saint Catherine's Hospital at 12:46 A.M.
Caroline, Marcus and Holloway went inside.
Adrian remained with Juliette while Rebecca attempted to stabilize her.
Douglas insisted on coming.
Caroline refused.
"I don't trust you."
Douglas almost smiled.
"At least that's progress."
Saint Catherine's had been abandoned for eight years.
Broken windows stared across the parking lot like empty eye sockets.
The entrance doors were chained.
But one chain had been cut.
Marcus entered first.
His gun remained raised.
Holloway followed.
Caroline came last.
"You knew Thomas," she whispered to Holloway.
"Yes."
"Did you know he survived?"
Holloway didn't answer.
"Richard."
He stopped.
It was the first time she had called him by his first name.
Not Father.
She wasn't ready for that.
Perhaps she never would be.
"Did you know?"
"For a while."
Marcus turned.
"What?"
Holloway looked at him.
"I saw him seventeen years ago."
Marcus rushed forward and slammed Holloway against the wall.
"You knew my father was alive?"
"Marcus—"
"You knew?"
"Yes."
Marcus punched him.
Holloway fell.
Caroline grabbed Marcus before he could strike again.
"Not now!"
Marcus was shaking.
"He let me bury an empty coffin."
Holloway wiped blood from his mouth.
"Your father demanded it."
"I was a child!"
"He was trying to protect you."
Marcus laughed bitterly.
Caroline recognized the expression.
That word again.
Protect.
The excuse that had poisoned every family in this story.
A speaker crackled overhead.
"Marcus."
Everyone froze.
An old man's voice filled the corridor.
Marcus looked upward.
His face became that of a thirteen-year-old boy.
"Dad?"
"Third floor."
The speaker clicked off.
Marcus ran.
---
Room 316 was illuminated.
Every other room remained dark.
Marcus reached it first.
Caroline followed.
Inside, Evelyn sat in a chair.
Awake.
Uninjured.
Untied.
Caroline stopped.
"Evelyn?"
The doctor looked ashamed.
"I'm sorry."
Marcus raised his gun.
"Where is he?"
"Marcus."
A man stepped from behind the curtain.
Seventy, perhaps older.
White hair.
Lean body.
A cane in one hand.
A pistol in the other.
Marcus forgot to breathe.
The old man looked at him.
"Hello, son."
Marcus's weapon lowered.
"Dad."
Thomas Vance smiled.
For one second, Caroline thought Marcus might embrace him.
Instead Marcus punched him.
Thomas hit the wall.
His pistol fell.
Marcus grabbed his shirt.
"You let me think you were dead!"
"I know."
"You let Mom die believing—"
"Your mother knew."
Marcus stopped.
"What?"
"She knew."
Thomas's eyes filled with tears.
"She helped me disappear."
Marcus released him.
Another childhood memory destroyed.
"Why?"
"Because Douglas would have killed all of you."
Douglas wasn't there to defend himself.
Perhaps that made the accusation easier.
Caroline stepped forward.
"You asked for me."
Thomas looked at her.
His gaze moved to her scar.
"Yes."
"You know what's inside my neck."
"I put it there."
Evelyn closed her eyes.
Caroline turned toward her.
"You?"
Evelyn whispered, "I assisted."
Caroline stared at the woman who had treated her for years.
"You told me you didn't know."
"I didn't know what the device contained."
"But you knew it existed."
"Yes."
Another lie.
Caroline almost laughed.
"Is there anyone left who hasn't lied to me?"
Thomas answered.
"Juliette."
Caroline stared at him.
"Juliette locked me in a burning house."
"Yes."
"She lied for twenty-seven years."
"About the fire."
Thomas leaned on his cane.
"But not about what matters now."
Caroline frowned.
"What matters now?"
"Why she was shot."
Holloway entered the room.
Thomas saw him.
The two old men stared at each other.
"Richard."
"Thomas."
"You've aged badly."
"So have you."
Marcus stepped between them.
"No more games."
Thomas nodded.
"Agreed."
He looked at Caroline.
"Juliette wasn't shot by Holloway's man."
Caroline remembered Juliette's words.
**Then you don't control your people anymore.**
"Who shot her?"
"Evelyn."
Silence.
Caroline turned slowly.
Evelyn stood.
"No."
Thomas raised one hand.
"Show her."
Evelyn looked terrified.
"Thomas."
"She deserves the truth."
Caroline's voice became cold.
"Show me what?"
Evelyn reached beneath her blouse.
Marcus raised his weapon.
"Slowly."
She pulled out a necklace.
A small silver pendant.
She opened it.
Inside was a photograph.
Caroline took it.
Evelyn as a young woman.
Beside her—
Laura Vale.
The woman who had died in Caroline's bedroom.
Caroline looked at Evelyn.
"You knew Laura."
Evelyn's eyes filled with tears.
"She was my wife."
Nobody spoke.
"Laura died trying to save you," Evelyn whispered.
Caroline's anger weakened.
"You shot Juliette because she locked me inside."
"I believed Juliette murdered Laura."
"Believed?"
"Until tonight."
Thomas nodded.
"Evelyn didn't know Rebecca had started the fire."
Caroline stared at her surgeon.
"So all those years you treated me..."
"I couldn't save Laura."
Evelyn's voice broke.
"Saving you was the closest thing I had."
Caroline didn't know whether to hate her or embrace her.
She did neither.
Thomas walked toward a medical cabinet.
"There's one final truth."
Caroline almost laughed.
"Of course there is."
He opened the cabinet.
Inside was a portable scanner.
"I need to remove the device."
Holloway immediately said, "No."
Thomas looked at him.
"You don't get a vote."
"What's on it?"
"The original Vale succession file."
Adrian had said the same.
But Thomas continued.
"And the identity of the person who ordered Adrian's disappearance."
Caroline frowned.
"Douglas."
Thomas shook his head.
"No."
Holloway?
Again Thomas shook his head.
"Then who?"
Thomas looked toward Evelyn.
She lowered her eyes.
Caroline's heart began pounding.
"Who ordered it?"
Thomas said:
"Eleanor Mercer."
Caroline stared at him.
"No."
"Eleanor arranged Adrian's disappearance."
"Why?"
"Because Adrian discovered who Caroline's biological father really was."
Holloway stepped forward.
"What are you talking about?"
Thomas looked at him.
"You still think she's yours."
Rebecca's claim.
The recording.
Douglas saying Holloway would never know.
Everything had pointed toward him.
Thomas shook his head.
"Rebecca believed you were Caroline's father because that's what Douglas told her."
Holloway went pale.
Caroline could barely speak.
"Then who is?"
Thomas activated the scanner.
"That's what Eleanor died protecting."
A red light moved across Caroline's scar.
The machine beeped.
Thomas examined the screen.
Then his expression changed.
"What?"
Marcus stepped closer.
"Dad?"
Thomas scanned again.
Nothing.
He looked at Caroline.
"The device is gone."
Caroline touched her neck.
"Impossible."
"No."
Thomas stared at the surgical scar.
"Someone removed it."
Evelyn whispered, "I never did."
Caroline suddenly remembered.
The locked ward.
Years of surgeries.
One procedure she had never understood.
A transfer to a private clinic six months after the fire.
A surgeon whose face she couldn't remember.
"Who had access to me?"
Thomas looked at Evelyn.
She went pale.
"Only one person authorized that transfer."
"Who?"
Evelyn swallowed.
"Douglas Mercer."
Caroline's phone rang.
Everyone stared at it.
Unknown number.
She answered.
Douglas's voice.
"Caroline."
"Where is the device?"
Silence.
"You removed it."
"Yes."
"Where is it?"
"I gave it to the only person I trusted."
Caroline laughed bitterly.
"You don't trust anyone."
"I trusted one person."
"Who?"
Douglas hesitated.
Then:
"Juliette."
Caroline's heart stopped.
"Why?"
"Because the device doesn't prove who your father is."
Thomas looked toward her.
Douglas continued.
"It proves something much more dangerous."
"What?"
"The Mercer fortune, Vale Industries, everything we've been fighting over..."
He paused.
"None of it belongs to you."
Caroline gripped the phone.
"Then who does it belong to?"
Douglas's answer came quietly.
"Juliette."
Caroline frowned.
That was already possible if Adrian was Juliette's biological father.
But Douglas continued.
"Because Adrian Vale isn't simply Juliette's biological father."
A long silence.
"He is Eleanor Mercer's biological brother."
Caroline looked at Adrian's sister Lillian's photograph in her hand.
Her mind raced through the implications.
Douglas delivered the final blow.
"And Eleanor Mercer was your biological mother."
Caroline stopped breathing.
"That's impossible."
"No."
Douglas's voice softened.
"Rebecca didn't give birth to you, Caroline."
Thomas Vance closed his eyes.
He knew.
Caroline realized it immediately.
"Thomas?"
The old detective said nothing.
Douglas continued through the phone.
"Rebecca gave birth to a child that night."
Caroline's voice shook.
"If it wasn't me..."
Douglas answered:
"It was Juliette."