CHAPTER 14: THE GRAVE ROBBER

Victoria looked directly into the hidden camera.

“I know you’re watching, Adrian.”

Behind her, the stone coffin of Adrian’s father had been opened.

“I tried to protect you from this,” she continued. “But you always preferred dead women and impossible children to the people standing beside you.”

Adrian’s jaw tightened.

Victoria held up the silver key.

“Sebastian wants this. Daniel wants the boy. Elena wants revenge. None of them care whether you survive.”

“Trace the signal,” Adrian told Mason.

“I’m trying.”

Victoria stepped closer to the camera.

“There is still a way out. Bring Eli to the old Vale hospital before sunrise.”

Emma shook her head.

“It’s a trap.”

“Of course it is,” Adrian said.

Victoria smiled on the screen.

“If you refuse, every medical implant created by Vale Industries will receive the same signal as yours.”

Adrian felt cold.

Millions of people relied on pacemakers, nerve stimulators and spinal devices produced by his company.

“She can control them?” Mason asked.

Emma whispered, “Sebastian can.”

Victoria placed the key inside a small metal box.

“Sunrise, Adrian.”

The feed ended.

Mason finally located the transmission.

“Saint Gabriel Cemetery.”

Adrian grabbed his cane.

Emma blocked his path.

“You can barely walk.”

“I don’t need to walk far.”

“You can’t trust Victoria.”

“I don’t.”

“Then what are you planning?”

Adrian looked toward Eli.

“For twelve years, they believed a wheelchair made me harmless.”

At the cemetery, Victoria was waiting alone inside the mausoleum.

Adrian entered using the wheelchair.

She laughed bitterly.

“You decided to remain realistic.”

Adrian placed his hands on the wheels.

Then he stood.

Victoria’s face changed.

He took three steps toward her.

“You should have checked whether the cage was still locked.”

Mason emerged behind her and took the metal box.

Victoria did not resist.

She looked almost relieved.

“Open it,” she said.

Inside was the silver key.

And a folded medical report.

Adrian read the first page.

The report contained a DNA analysis completed nine years earlier.

ELI CARTER: PATERNAL GRANDFATHER—ADRIAN VALE.

Adrian looked up.

Victoria whispered, “That isn’t the part you should fear.”

She turned the page.

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Under the section marked PATERNAL FATHER was another name.

DANIEL VALE—DECEASED.