CHAPTER 7: CONRAD VALE
Conrad Vale looked nothing like a dying man.
His silver hair was perfectly combed. His dark suit was expensive and carefully fitted. Only the wheelchair supported the public story of his weakness.
Ava ran to her father.
Ethan lifted her into his arms.
“Did he hurt you?”
She shook her head.
“He showed me a picture.”
Conrad held up the folded paper.
“This is not a message,” he said. “It is a map.”
Ethan kept Ava behind him.
“Give it back.”
Conrad smiled.
“You have your daughter. I have what belongs to my family.”
“It came from my father’s bat.”
“Your father took many things from us.”
Bianca entered the room.
“Grandfather?”
Conrad’s eyes moved toward her.
“You were told not to interfere.”
“I thought you were at the estate.”
“You were told many things.”
Eleanor appeared at the end of the corridor with Dane and several guards.
When she saw Conrad, she stopped.
The powerful matriarch suddenly looked uncertain.
“Conrad, you should not be here.”
“I built this family,” he replied. “I will stand wherever I choose.”
“You cannot stand,” Bianca whispered.
Conrad looked at her coldly.
“That is what the world believes.”
He placed both hands on the wheelchair.
Then, slowly, he rose to his feet.
Bianca gasped.
Eleanor closed her eyes.
Conrad took one controlled step forward.
“My condition was useful,” he said. “People speak freely around a dying man.”
Ethan watched Eleanor.
She was not shocked that Conrad could walk.
She was shocked he had revealed it.
Conrad unfolded the paper.
A series of numbers and symbols had been drawn across it.
Ava pointed.
“That’s not the picture he showed me.”
Conrad’s gaze snapped toward her.
“What picture?”
“The one inside the paper.”
Ethan took the strip from Conrad before the old man could stop him.
He held it toward the red light.
A second image appeared beneath the writing.
It was a tiny photograph.
Samuel Mercer stood beside Conrad Vale at Halcyon Field.
Between them was a young woman holding a baby.
Ethan recognized his father.
He recognized Conrad.
But he had never seen the woman before.
May you like
On the back, someone had written:
Ethan must never learn who his real mother is.
