CHAPTER 25 — GABRIEL’S SECRET
Khloe confronted Gabriel privately.
“Why did Isabella warn me about you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Stop lying.”
Gabriel looked through the glass at Hope’s incubator.
“I suspected Marcus was my son years ago.”
Khloe stared at him.
“You said you didn’t know.”
“I had doubts.”
“And you did nothing?”
“I secretly ordered a DNA test. Evelyn intercepted it.”
“When?”
“Twelve years ago.”
“Why didn’t you tell Marcus?”
“Because Evelyn threatened you.”
Khloe’s anger rose.
“She threatened everyone, and all of you obeyed.”
Gabriel lowered his head.
“She sent me photographs of you at school. At restaurants. Sleeping in your apartment.”
Khloe felt cold.
“She watched me?”
“For years.”
“What else are you hiding?”
Gabriel opened a safe and removed a small cassette recorder.
“Your father made this the night before his plane crashed.”
He pressed play.
Daniel Cole’s voice filled the room.
“Gabriel, if you hear this, I failed. Evelyn knows Celeste is alive. She also knows where Arabella was placed.”
Static crackled.
Daniel continued.
“Do not trust the hospital records. HEIRLINE was moved below Saint Aurelia. The children were never only ours.”
Khloe frowned.
“Children?”
The recording continued.
“There were dozens. Perhaps more. Some were raised inside powerful families. Some replaced infants who died. Some were created to control inheritance.”
Gabriel stopped the tape.
Khloe stared at him.
“Marcus and Isabella were not the only children.”
“No.”
“Who ran the program?”
Gabriel’s eyes darkened.
“Your father believed the director was someone called Dr. Monarch.”
Khloe remembered the Red Queen.
“Monarch means ruler.”
Gabriel nodded.
“Or queen.”
A nurse entered carrying an envelope found beneath Hope’s incubator.
Inside was a photograph of Gabriel holding newborn Marcus decades earlier.
May you like
On the back, Celeste had written:
YOU GAVE HIM AWAY WILLINGLY.
