CHAPTER 15 — THE FIRE BELOW THE HOUSE
Grace woke beneath the dining table.
Smoke filled the mansion.
Ethan was cutting through the restraint around her wrist.
“Can you stand?”
She nodded.
The sedative had left her dizzy but conscious.
Naomi had activated Clara’s implant before the gas fully spread, triggering an emergency power failure that released the restraints.
Clara helped Claire toward the staircase.
Daniel freed Lydia.
Helen had disappeared.
“She went below with Silas,” Lydia said.
“And Evelyn,” Grace replied.
The destruction sequence displayed on a wall monitor.
Forty-two percent complete.
The underground server core was resisting.
Silas and Evelyn were attempting to stop it.
“We need all four heirs at the primary terminal,” Claire said.
Grace looked at Clara, Ethan and Claire.
“Then we go.”
Daniel stopped them.
“The lower level will be defended.”
Grace gave him a weapon.
“So defend us.”
They descended through the hidden door beneath the staircase.
The underground complex was larger than Holloway Tower’s command center.
Rows of servers extended beneath the island.
Red emergency lights flashed.
Armed guards fired from the lower platform.
Daniel and Naomi returned fire.
Lydia remained near the entrance to protect the escape route.
Grace, Clara, Claire and Ethan moved toward the central terminal.
The system requested four biometric confirmations.
They pressed their hands against the glass.
Three profiles appeared immediately.
Grace.
Claire.
Clara.
Ethan’s failed.
He tried again.
Invalid.
Silas appeared on the upper platform.
“Because he is not Evelyn’s son.”
Ethan stared at him.
“The DNA report confirmed it.”
“The report confirmed a maternal match with the blood sample.”
Grace understood.
The sample was Evelyn’s.
But Ethan’s profile in the suitcase may have been altered.
“Who is his mother?” Grace asked.
Margaret’s voice came from behind them.
“Me.”
Everyone turned.
Margaret stood near the emergency doorway.
Blood stained her clothes, but she was alive.
The sniper bullet had struck a medical implant near her spine, reducing the damage.
Ethan could not speak.
Margaret approached.
“I lied because Silas wanted you to believe Evelyn abandoned you. Anger made you easier to control.”
“Then Grace and I are not related?”
“No.”
Hope and horror entered Ethan’s face simultaneously.
Their marriage was no longer biologically forbidden.
But everything else remained.
Grace looked toward the terminal.
“We still need Evelyn’s fourth child.”
Daniel stepped forward.
“It is me.”
Margaret shook her head.
“No. You are Silas’s son.”
Daniel stopped.
Silas smiled.
“At least one of my children remembers his place.”
Clara examined the system.
“The fourth profile is hidden.”
Claire touched the interface.
A name appeared.
MERCER HEIR FOUR: UNREGISTERED
Grace looked toward Evelyn.
She stood beside the server core, attempting to cancel the destruction.
“Who is the fourth child?”
Evelyn did not answer.
Naomi raised her gun.
“Tell them.”
Evelyn looked at Naomi.
“You promised.”
“I promised to wear your face. I did not promise to carry your sins.”
Naomi turned toward Grace.
“The fourth child is Helen.”
Lydia stared at her twin approaching beside Silas.
“Helen is Evelyn’s daughter?”
Naomi nodded.
“Evelyn became pregnant at fourteen. Her parents hid the birth. Lydia was raised as Helen’s twin to conceal the age difference.”
Helen’s face twisted.
“You told them.”
Lydia looked shattered.
“My sister was my niece?”
Helen laughed bitterly.
“You were the replacement child. I was the scandal.”
Evelyn shouted, “Enough!”
The servers began overheating.
Destruction reached sixty percent.
Grace looked at Helen.
“You are the fourth key.”
Helen aimed her weapon.
“And once I authorize the system, I become the primary Mercer heir.”
“No,” Claire said. “The command destroys everything.”
Helen looked toward Silas.
“He promised me control.”
Silas’s expression revealed the lie.
Helen saw it.
“You never intended to give it to me.”
“You were useful.”
The same sentence had destroyed every child in the family.
Helen turned the gun toward Silas.
He fired first.
The bullet struck her stomach.
Lydia screamed and caught her as she fell.
Silas moved toward the terminal.
Ethan intercepted him.
They crashed into the railing.
Margaret joined the fight, striking Silas with a metal rod.
Grace knelt beside Helen.
“You need to authorize the destruction.”
Helen laughed weakly.
“So Lydia inherits the family name?”
“There should be nothing left to inherit.”
Helen looked at Lydia.
For the first time, the sisters saw each other without thirty years of rivalry between them.
Lydia held her hand.
“Please.”
Helen pressed her bloody palm against the scanner.
The fourth profile activated.
ALL HEIRS CONFIRMED.
Grace selected:
DESTROY NETWORK
The system requested final maternal approval.
Evelyn stood at the core terminal.
Her hand hovered above the cancel command.
“Mother,” Grace said.
Evelyn looked at her children.
Grace.
Clara.
Claire.
And Helen dying in Lydia’s arms.
Then at Ethan, whom she had falsely claimed as her son.
Daniel, whom she had allowed to believe another lie.
Naomi, who had surrendered her identity.
Every life around her had been twisted by her war.
“You can end it,” Grace said.
Evelyn’s eyes filled with tears.
“If I destroy it, we lose the power to protect ourselves.”
“No,” Grace replied. “We lose the power to become you.”
Silas threw Ethan aside and ran toward Evelyn.
Margaret shot him in the leg.
He fell.
Evelyn looked at the approval screen.
Then she pressed her palm against it.
MATERNAL APPROVAL CONFIRMED.
The destruction sequence accelerated.
Seventy percent.
Eighty.
Ninety.
Silas crawled toward the emergency backup.
Ethan grabbed him.
The server core ignited.
Fire spread across the chamber.
“Evacuate!” Daniel shouted.
Grace helped Clara carry Claire.
Naomi supported Daniel.
Margaret dragged Ethan away from Silas.
Lydia refused to leave Helen.
Helen opened her eyes.
“Go.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“You already spent your life carrying me.”
Helen pushed Lydia away.
Then she fired into the overhead coolant system.
Water flooded the chamber, slowing the fire long enough for the others to escape.
The ceiling collapsed between them.
Lydia screamed her name.
Grace pulled her toward the stairs.
Behind them, Silas reached the backup terminal.
Helen, barely conscious, aimed her gun one final time.
She shot the power core.
White light consumed the chamber.
Silas disappeared in the explosion.
So did Helen.
The mansion began collapsing above them.
They reached the runway as fire erupted through the roof.
Grace turned toward the house.
Evelyn was not with them.
“Where is my mother?”
Naomi looked back.
“She stayed.”
Grace ran toward the mansion.
Ethan caught her.
“You cannot go back.”
“She is alive.”
“The house is gone.”
Grace fought him until another explosion shattered the windows.
The Mercer estate collapsed into itself.
The network destruction reached one hundred percent.
Across the world, secret accounts froze.
Surveillance systems failed.
Witness locations vanished from the assassins’ screens.
The Holloway empire died beneath the island.
Grace fell to her knees.
In one night, she had found her mother.
And lost her again.
This time, she had seen the body disappear.
But as rescue helicopters approached the burning island, Grace’s phone received one final encrypted message.
It contained no words.
Only a photograph of Evelyn standing beside a boat on the opposite shore.
The timestamp showed ten seconds earlier.
May you like
Her mother had escaped.
Again.
