Chapter 9 - The Mother's Confession
There was another recording on the drive. I clicked it.
My mother appeared. I hadn’t heard her voice in nineteen years. She was sitting in our old kitchen, the one from before the laundromat.
“Elena,” she said, crying before the recording even began. “Your father is alive.”
The world vanished beneath me. I gripped the edge of the table to keep from falling.
Alexander whispered, “What?”
My mother explained, her voice shaking. The heart attack had been staged. Richard had already made two attempts on Gabriel’s life. My parents realized the only way to keep me safe was to make everyone believe Gabriel was dead.
The funeral had used a closed casket. The death certificate had been falsified by a doctor my father trusted. My mother stayed behind so nobody would suspect. Gabriel disappeared under another identity.
I was seventeen. Old enough to remember him forever. Too young, they believed, to survive being hunted by corporate mercenaries.
My mother looked into the camera, her eyes pleading.
“I hated lying to you. But I hated the thought of burying you more.”
Then she gave an address. A town in northern Maine. And a name.
Samuel Luna.
Sofie climbed onto my lap. “Mommy, why are you crying?”
May you like
I held her so tightly she protested. “Because Grandpa may have solved one last puzzle.”
(Read more of this exclusive drama at https://metro.treeiq.biz)
