CHAPTER 10 — THE BOARDROOM OF LIARS
The elevator climbed toward the sixtieth floor.
Grace stood between Ethan and Daniel.
Margaret remained near the control panel.
No one spoke.
The original letter rested beneath Grace’s coat.
The decoded ledger had been copied to three encrypted drives. One remained with Marcus, who was unconscious but alive. One was hidden in the server lab. Grace carried the third.
It was not enough.
Silas controlled the witness locations.
One command could trigger hundreds of murders.
“How do we stop the surveillance network?” Grace asked.
Margaret looked at the elevator display.
“The command center sits two floors above the boardroom.”
“Can we reach it?”
“Not without Silas’s biometric access.”
Ethan checked his gun.
“Then we take him there.”
Daniel laughed quietly.
“You have spent your entire life underestimating him.”
“And you spent yours obeying him.”
“I spent mine pretending to.”
The elevator stopped.
The doors opened onto a marble corridor.
Armed guards waited on both sides.
Grace counted twelve.
A security officer approached.
“Weapons.”
Ethan did not move.
Grace placed a hand on his arm.
They surrendered their guns.
Daniel hid a small blade beneath his sleeve.
The guards failed to notice.
The boardroom doors opened.
Silas sat beneath a chandelier at the end of a long black table.
Clara stood beside the windows.
Her wrists were free, but a guard remained behind her.
Twelve members of the Holloway network occupied the remaining seats.
Grace recognized a senator, two judges, a police commissioner and the owner of a national news company.
Each person looked more frightened of Silas than of the evidence against them.
“Welcome,” Silas said.
His eyes moved toward Ethan.
“You look exactly as I did at your age.”
Ethan remained silent.
Silas smiled.
“Still angry about the kidnapping?”
“You stole me from my mother.”
“I removed you from a weak woman.”
“You murdered her.”
“I corrected a problem.”
Grace stepped forward.
“You wanted the letter.”
Silas extended his hand.
“Place it on the table.”
“Release the witnesses first.”
A judge laughed nervously.
Silas did not.
“You have no negotiating position.”
“I have the missing twenty-two percent.”
“And I have Clara.”
Clara looked at Grace.
Do not surrender it, her expression seemed to say.
Silas pressed a button.
One of the surveillance feeds enlarged.
A man sat inside a parked car with his wife and two children.
A red timer appeared.
Thirty seconds.
“Give me the letter.”
Grace remained still.
Twenty seconds.
Ethan moved toward Silas.
The guards raised their weapons.
“Stop,” Grace said.
Ten seconds.
She took out the letter.
Clara shook her head.
Grace placed it on the table.
The timer stopped at two seconds.
Silas lifted the page.
His smile faded.
“You damaged the seal.”
“I read it.”
“You decoded it.”
“Yes.”
Silas looked at Margaret.
“You failed.”
Margaret met his gaze.
“For thirty years.”
Silas turned the letter beneath the chandelier.
“The final section requires a second key.”
“What key?” Grace asked.
“Twin biometric confirmation.”
He looked at Grace and Clara.
“The archive only unlocks when both daughters provide blood.”
Clara laughed.
“You need us alive.”
“For now.”
Silas signaled.
A technician brought a biometric reader.
Grace and Clara were forced to opposite sides of the table.
“Press your thumbs against the glass,” Silas ordered.
Clara looked at Grace.
Grace remembered the warning in Evelyn’s letter.
Do not let Ethan discover that the child survived.
At the time, she believed “the child” meant Clara.
Now she wondered whether it meant someone else.
Grace pressed her thumb against the scanner.
Clara followed.
The system processed their DNA.
A message appeared.
TWIN MATCH INVALID.
Silas stood.
“What?”
The technician tried again.
Same result.
Grace stared at Clara.
“You’re not my twin?”
Clara’s face went pale.
“I don’t understand.”
Silas grabbed the technician.
“Explain.”
“The genetic profiles indicate a sibling relationship, but not identical or fraternal twins.”
“What relationship?”
The technician swallowed.
“Maternal half sisters.”
Silence filled the room.
Grace looked at Clara.
The photographs.
The bracelets.
The matching birth story.
All constructed.
Silas turned toward Margaret.
“Who is the second twin?”
Margaret smiled faintly.
“You never found her.”
He struck her across the face.
Ethan lunged forward, but guards restrained him.
Silas shouted, “Where is Claire Mercer?”
Clara looked at Grace.
“My name is Clara, but I am not Claire.”
Grace understood.
Clara had been raised to believe she was the stolen twin.
Another layer of protection.
Another false identity.
“Who is Clara’s father?” Grace asked.
Daniel answered.
“Silas.”
Everyone turned toward him.
Clara stared.
“No.”
Daniel continued.
“Silas assaulted Evelyn years after Ethan was born. Clara was conceived during that attack.”
Silas looked almost amused.
“So she is mine.”
Clara recoiled.
“You are nothing to me.”
“Blood disagrees.”
Grace looked at the surveillance feeds.
“Then where is Claire?”
A gunshot erupted.
The guard behind Clara collapsed.
Naomi stood in the boardroom doorway, holding a rifle.
Lydia was beside her, pale but armed.
Security opened fire.
The chandelier shattered.
Darkness fell.
Grace dropped beneath the table.
Clara crawled toward her.
Ethan fought one of the guards.
Daniel slashed another across the wrist and took his weapon.
Margaret moved toward Silas.
He caught her by the throat.
“You should have died years ago.”
Margaret drove a hidden blade into his side.
Silas roared and threw her across the table.
Grace seized the biometric reader.
On its screen, a hidden file had opened after the failed twin scan.
A photograph appeared.
A young woman stood beside Evelyn.
The date was six months earlier.
The woman looked exactly like Grace.
Not similar.
Identical.
Beneath the image was a location.
ST. AGNES MEDICAL CENTER — RESTRICTED WARD
Claire was alive.
And Evelyn had been photographed beside her only six months ago.
The blood sample said Evelyn died eight years earlier.
Either the photograph was false—
Or someone else had provided the blood.
Gunfire continued around them.
Clara dragged Grace toward the exit.
Silas escaped through a private door leading to the command center.
Ethan followed.
“Ethan!” Grace shouted.
He disappeared before she could stop him.
Daniel approached the biometric screen.
He saw the photograph.
His face changed.
“She found Claire.”
“Who?”
“Naomi.”
Naomi heard him from across the room.
She looked toward Grace.
“No.”
Daniel raised his gun.
“The woman photographed beside Claire has Naomi’s burn scar hidden beneath makeup.”
Naomi lowered her rifle.
Grace stared at her.
“You knew where Claire was.”
Naomi answered softly.
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because Claire is the one person Silas truly fears.”
“Why?”
A deafening alarm activated.
The command center had been breached.
On the surveillance wall, every target timer began counting down from five minutes.
Naomi looked toward the private door.
“Because Claire controls the kill switch.”
Grace ran after Ethan.
Behind her, Naomi shouted:
“Do not let him reach Silas!”
“Why?”
“Because Silas did not steal Ethan.”
Grace turned.
Naomi’s next words froze her.
May you like
“Ethan was given to him.”
“By Evelyn.”
