Chapter 14 - The Second Child
Mateo discovered a maintenance route to the master power bus one level below.
Destroying it would stop the purge, but it would also destroy the cold-storage archives containing original evidence of decades of Mercer crimes.
For thirty years our family had repeatedly chosen secrecy over truth.
I refused to do it again.
I told Noah to open the ledger.
His blood activated the silver seal.
Names began appearing across the embedded page.
Marcus Vale.
Eleanor Vale.
Victor Vale.
Sebastian Vale.
Luca Vale-Mercer.
Emma Evelyn Vale.
Noah Maren Vale-Mercer.
Emma Clara Vale-Mercer.
Then another name appeared.
VICTORIA VALE.
Victor went white.
He admitted Victoria was his daughter, born thirty-two years earlier and believed dead.
The ledger showed her status as an active authenticator located inside Helvetia.
A woman stepped into the observation room above us.
I recognized her immediately.
Elena Ward, my chief counsel of eight years.
She had approved acquisitions, read our vulnerabilities, and stood beside me during every crisis.
She touched the intercom.
"My real name is Victoria Vale."
The purge timer stopped.
The doors remained locked.
Victoria smiled down at us.
May you like
"Unlike Adrian, I actually know how to finish what Grandfather started."
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