Chapter 7 - Thirteen Minutes
The heart monitor screamed before Julian touched either button.
He spun toward the bed.
Eleanor's body had gone rigid. Her eyes were open, but she wasn't responding.
“Mother!”
Julian reached her as nurses rushed through the door.
“Sir, move back.”
“What happened?”
“Move back now.”
A nurse pulled him aside while another checked Eleanor's pulse.
The monitor showed a rapid, chaotic rhythm.
Vivienne stood frozen near the doorway, still holding the phone with the livestream.
**12:47**
The countdown continued.
“Julian.”
He looked at her.
On the screen, Nathan remained tied to the chair.
Alive.
For now.
Cross entered with two agents.
“What happened?”
“Someone just gave me a choice.”
Julian shoved the phone toward him.
Cross read the message.
His expression hardened.
“Don't touch anything.”
“I have twelve minutes.”
“That interface could be meaningless.”
“Or it could kill someone.”
“Exactly why you don't press anything until we understand what it triggers.”
Julian looked toward Eleanor.
Doctors surrounded her.
One nurse prepared medication while another attached additional leads.
The monitor changed.
Still fast.
But organized.
“She's stabilizing,” someone said.
Julian exhaled.
Then the livestream changed.
A second camera feed appeared.
Adrian.
He was still inside the secure hospital room.
But now someone stood behind him.
A person in surgical scrubs.
Face covered.
Cross immediately grabbed his radio.
“Lock down the fourth floor. Room 417. Now.”
The masked person placed something against Adrian's neck.
A syringe.
Adrian struggled.
Text appeared beneath the feeds.
**12:03**
**SAVE ADRIAN**
**SAVE NATHAN**
Vivienne whispered, “They really can reach him.”
Cross was already issuing orders.
“Security team to four seventeen. Nobody enters or leaves.”
A voice answered through his radio.
“Sir, Room 417 is empty.”
Everyone stopped.
Cross lifted the radio.
“Repeat.”
“Patient is gone.”
Julian stared at him.
“You lost another person?”
“Shut the building down.”
“Cross—”
“I said shut it down!”
The federal agent's composure had finally cracked.
Julian noticed something else.
Cross was frightened.
Not professionally concerned.
Frightened.
Vivienne noticed too.
The countdown reached eleven minutes.
“Who has this kind of access?” she asked.
Cross didn't answer.
Julian stepped between him and the door.
“Who?”
“Not now.”
“That answer isn't available anymore.”
Cross looked toward the medical staff surrounding Eleanor.
Then toward his agents.
“There's a protocol.”
“What protocol?”
Cross lowered his voice.
“Blackwood.”
Julian frowned.
“What's Blackwood?”
“A sealed federal operation opened twelve years ago.”
Vivienne went pale.
“Twelve?”
The year Thomas Hart died.
Cross continued reluctantly.
“Blackwood began after an internal Treasury analyst discovered unusual payments moving through Sterling-controlled subsidiaries.”
“Thomas?”
Cross looked at Vivienne.
“Yes.”
Her face collapsed.
“My father worked with you?”
“Not with me. I wasn't assigned until years later.”
“Then why was I never told?”
“Because Blackwood was compromised.”
Julian understood immediately.
“Someone inside the government.”
“We believed so.”
“Believed?”
“We never identified them.”
Vivienne looked at Cross.
“That's why Adrian warned me about you.”
Cross's expression changed.
“What?”
Julian watched him.
“You don't know?”
“No.”
Vivienne remained silent.
“Tell me.”
“Adrian used a signal my father taught me. It meant not to trust the person beside me.”
“And I was beside you.”
“Yes.”
Cross stared at her.
Then laughed bitterly.
“If I wanted you dead, you wouldn't be standing here.”
Julian's eyes hardened.
“That's exactly the kind of sentence people say before becoming suspects.”
The phone chimed.
**10:00**
A new line appeared.
**TEN MINUTES.**
Then:
**ASK DANIEL CROSS WHO SIGNED THOMAS HART'S DEATH REPORT.**
Vivienne slowly raised her eyes.
Cross went completely still.
“Who signed it?” she whispered.
Cross said nothing.
“Daniel.”
“I didn't kill your father.”
“That wasn't the question.”
Cross looked trapped.
Julian moved closer.
“Who signed it?”
Finally Cross answered.
“My father.”
Silence.
Vivienne stared at him.
“Your father?”
“Dr. Benjamin Cross.”
“He was the medical examiner?”
“For the county.”
“And he signed my father's death certificate?”
“Yes.”
Vivienne slapped Cross.
Hard.
No one moved.
“You knew?”
“I found out after joining Blackwood.”
“You knew and never told me?”
“I had no reason to contact you.”
“My father died!”
“I know.”
“Was it an accident?”
Cross's silence answered.
Vivienne stepped backward.
“Oh my God.”
Julian looked at Cross.
“What really happened?”
“Thomas Hart's car was found against a concrete barrier. The official cause was traumatic injury after a high-speed collision.”
“Official.”
Cross nodded.
“When Blackwood was reopened, we discovered inconsistencies.”
“What inconsistencies?”
“No skid marks. No mechanical failure. No alcohol. And the injuries didn't completely match the crash.”
Vivienne's eyes filled with tears.
“What killed him?”
Cross looked at her.
“Blunt-force trauma to the back of the skull.”
Before the collision.
Vivienne covered her mouth.
Julian looked at the countdown.
**08:41**
“We're wasting time.”
Cross took the phone.
“Can we trace it?”
An agent shook his head.
“Signal's bouncing internationally.”
Julian stared at the two buttons.
“Maybe this isn't about choosing who lives.”
Vivienne looked at him.
“What else?”
“Information.”
He pointed at the messages.
“Every time we refuse to play, they reveal something.”
Cross understood.
“They're directing the investigation.”
“Exactly.”
“To what?”
“I don't know.”
Julian looked at Nathan on the screen.
“But whoever is doing this doesn't simply want us dead.”
Another message appeared.
**GOOD.**
Everyone froze.
The sender had heard him.
Julian looked around the room.
“We're being monitored.”
Cross immediately ordered everyone to surrender electronic devices.
The message continued.
**NOW ASK ELEANOR WHY NATHAN HAD TO DISAPPEAR.**
Julian looked toward his mother.
She was conscious again.
Weak.
But watching.
“Mother.”
Eleanor shook her head.
“No.”
“People are going to die.”
“You don't understand.”
“Then make me understand.”
The countdown showed:
**07:12**
Eleanor stared at Nathan's face on the phone.
Her tears began again.
“He wasn't supposed to survive.”
Julian felt sick.
“What?”
“Not because we wanted him dead.”
“Then why?”
“He was born sick.”
She struggled to breathe.
“Severe respiratory distress. Dr. Mercer believed he might die within hours.”
Julian remembered the diary.
**Boy B respiratory distress.**
“Evelyn arranged the transfer.”
“Yes.”
“To St. Catherine's?”
“Temporarily.”
“But Gabriel took him.”
Eleanor nodded.
“Why?”
“Because the blood tests came back.”
Julian's heart pounded.
“What blood tests?”
Eleanor looked directly at him.
“Nathan wasn't Richard's child.”
“We already know Richard isn't my biological father.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“You don't understand.”
“Then explain it.”
“You and Nathan didn't have the same father.”
The room went silent.
Julian stared at her.
“We weren't twins?”
“You were.”
Vivienne whispered, “That's biologically possible.”
Eleanor nodded.
“Heteropaternal superfecundation.”
Cross looked confused.
Vivienne explained quietly.
“Two eggs fertilized by sperm from different men during the same ovulatory cycle.”
Julian felt as though the floor had shifted.
“Who was Nathan's father?”
Eleanor began crying.
“Gabriel.”
Julian's voice became barely audible.
“And mine?”
She looked away.
“Richard?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
“I never knew.”
The countdown reached six minutes.
Julian clenched his jaw.
“You had relationships with three men?”
“No.”
“Then how can you not know?”
Eleanor's face twisted with shame and pain.
“Because what happened to me wasn't a relationship.”
Julian's anger vanished.
Vivienne closed her eyes.
No one spoke.
Eleanor whispered, “There was a Sterling party. I was drugged. I remember almost nothing.”
Julian sat down.
For the first time, he didn't press her.
Eleanor continued.
“Gabriel found me afterward. Weeks later, I learned I was pregnant. We assumed both children were his.”
“Until the tests.”
“Yes.”
“Nathan was Gabriel's.”
“Yes.”
“And I wasn't.”
“Yes.”
The phone chimed.
**05:00**
Then a new message:
**NOW YOU UNDERSTAND WHY EVELYN CHANGED THE TRUST.**
Julian stared at it.
“No,” he whispered.
Then realization arrived.
The trust.
The inheritance.
The hidden second child.
His uncertain paternity.
Evelyn had not been deciding which grandson she loved more.
She had been protecting the identity of one.
“Whoever my biological father is,” Julian said, “his identity is connected to the ledger.”
Eleanor looked at him.
“Yes.”
“You know that?”
“Evelyn believed it.”
“What did she believe?”
“That the man who assaulted me was one of the names in the second ledger.”
Julian's blood turned cold.
“Which name?”
“I don't know.”
The screen changed again.
Nathan's camera zoomed closer.
Someone stepped behind his chair.
A gloved hand held a gun.
**04:11**
Vivienne gasped.
“Julian, choose.”
Cross shook his head.
“No.”
“We don't have time.”
“That's exactly what they want.”
“What if Nathan dies?”
“What if pressing one button kills the other?”
Julian stared at the interface.
SAVE ADRIAN.
SAVE NATHAN.
He remembered Richard.
**Ask Eleanor which one she brought home.**
He remembered Evelyn's message.
**Eleanor did not choose. Evelyn did.**
Then Adrian.
**The boy beside you was named Nathan.**
Everyone wanted Julian to choose between two men.
Why?
Because someone had made that choice once before.
And everything happening tonight was forcing the family to reenact the past.
Julian looked at the phone.
“No.”
Vivienne stared at him.
“What?”
“I won't choose.”
**03:24**
“Julian—”
“That's the trap.”
He raised his voice toward the room.
“I know you're listening.”
Nothing happened.
“You want me to choose one brother over another because that's what Evelyn did.”
Cross watched him.
Julian continued.
“But you're forgetting something.”
**02:58**
“I don't trust either of them.”
The livestream flickered.
For one second, the image disappeared.
Then returned.
Julian saw something he hadn't noticed before.
A reflection behind Nathan.
Metal.
Glass.
A red sign.
Vivienne saw it too.
“Wait.”
She enlarged the image.
A reversed word appeared in the reflection.
**MATERNITY**
Cross stared.
“That's a hospital.”
Julian looked around.
Not merely a hospital.
This hospital.
Briarwood.
Cross grabbed his radio.
“Search every closed maternity wing. Now!”
An agent answered.
“Old maternity ward is in Building C.”
“How far?”
“Three minutes.”
Julian ran.
Cross followed.
Vivienne behind them.
**02:11**
They crossed the connecting corridor.
Two agents joined.
**01:42**
Building C had been closed for renovations.
Plastic sheeting covered the walls.
Cross kicked open the stairwell door.
Second floor.
Old maternity ward.
**01:03**
They heard a sound.
A chair scraping.
Julian ran toward it.
**00:49**
Room C-217.
Locked.
Cross drew his weapon.
“Federal agent!”
No response.
**00:35**
He kicked the door.
Once.
Twice.
The lock broke.
Julian rushed inside.
Nathan sat tied to the chair exactly as shown on the livestream.
But there was no gunman.
No masked attacker.
Only a camera.
And a handgun fixed to a mechanical device aimed directly at Nathan's chest.
The timer read:
**00:18**
Cross moved toward it.
“Don't touch it!”
Julian saw two wires running from the mechanism.
One red.
One black.
Then Nathan opened his eyes.
He looked directly at Julian.
Same face.
Same eyes.
But his first words were not a plea for help.
“Don't save me.”
Julian froze.
“What?”
Nathan looked toward the door.
“Save Eleanor.”
**00:10**
Julian turned.
Vivienne's phone changed.
The livestream of Eleanor's hospital room filled the screen.
The bed was empty.
“Mother?”
Cross shouted into his radio.
“Where is Eleanor Sterling?”
Static.
Then an agent responded.
“She's gone.”
**00:05**
Nathan smiled sadly.
“He finally came for her.”
“Who?”
**00:03**
“Your father.”
**00:02**
Julian stared at him.
“Which father?”
Nathan's expression changed.
Fear.
**00:01**
Then the timer reached zero.
Nothing happened.
No gunshot.
No explosion.
Instead, every screen in the abandoned maternity ward turned on simultaneously.
A surveillance video began playing.
Eleanor appeared on-screen eleven years earlier.
She was standing in a hospital room.
Beside her was Evelyn.
In front of them stood a third man whose face remained outside the camera frame.
Young Julian's voice could be heard somewhere in the hallway.
Then the unidentified man spoke.
Julian stopped breathing.
He recognized the voice.
Special Agent Cross did too.
Because it belonged to Cross's father.
Dr. Benjamin Cross.
On the recording, Eleanor whispered:
“You promised Julian would never learn what you did to me.”
Benjamin Cross stepped into view.
Then he reached out and touched the infant in Eleanor's arms.
Julian.
The recording froze.
Words appeared across every screen:
**THE WRONG MAN SIGNED THOMAS HART'S DEATH CERTIFICATE.**
Then:
**THE RIGHT MAN SIGNED JULIAN'S BIRTH CERTIFICATE.**
Julian slowly turned toward Daniel Cross.
Cross's face had gone white.
And Nathan whispered the truth before anyone else could.
“Benjamin Cross wasn't just the doctor who covered up Thomas Hart's murder.”
He looked directly at Julian.
“He was the man Evelyn believed was your father.”