CHAPTER 28: THE FATHER SHE TRUSTED
Claire stepped away from R-3.
The warmth vanished from his expression.
August had been hiding inside him.
Not fully controlling him.
Waiting beneath copied memories.
R-3 touched his head.
“No.”
Voss smiled.
“Secondary personality activation.”
The real Richard stood behind the desk.
“He was always the better host.”
R-3 fought against himself.
“Claire, run.”
Then August returned.
“No one leaves.”
Marcus fired at the lights.
The floor became dark.
Claire grabbed Lily.
Adrian carried Aiden toward the emergency stairs.
Claire Vale exchanged gunfire with Hale’s guards.
Helena attacked Voss.
The two Richards fought each other in the darkness.
When the emergency lights returned, one Richard lay dead.
The other stood over him holding a blood-covered knife.
Claire couldn’t tell which had survived.
“Claire,” he said.
She raised her weapon.
“Don’t move.”
“It’s me.”
“That means nothing.”
He touched his chest.
“The real Richard has the heart defect.”
Claire activated the medical scanner built into the executive desk.
The surviving man had the defect.
He was the biological Richard.
But August could still be inside him.
Richard looked at R-3’s body.
“I spent twenty years knowing a copy might replace me.”
“So you hid.”
“I tried to destroy the program from inside.”
“You let another man believe he was you.”
“I didn’t know August was inside him.”
Claire Vale joined them.
“Hale escaped.”
Helena held Dr. Voss at gunpoint.
“Not everyone did.”
Voss looked toward Claire.
“You should ask your mother who created Lily.”
Claire turned toward Helena.
“You said Evelyn did.”
Helena’s silence answered.
Claire’s anger rose.
“You created my daughter?”
“I created an embryo.”
“You made a child.”
“I needed a subject August could not control.”
“He is inside her!”
“Not completely.”
Lily looked toward Helena.
“You gave me the dreams.”
Helena lowered her eyes.
“Yes.”
Claire slapped her.
The sound echoed through the executive office.
“You stole my child before I knew she existed.”
Helena didn’t defend herself.
Voss laughed.
“She also created Aiden.”
Adrian looked at her with hatred.
“How many children did you make from us?”
Helena faced the window.
“Four.”
Claire froze.
“Where are the other two?”
Voss smiled.
“One has been beside you since the ballroom.”
Everyone looked around.
Marcus.
Miriam.
Claire Vale.
Richard.
Any one of them could be another child grown into adulthood.
Then Aiden opened his eyes.
May you like
He pointed toward Claire Vale.
“She isn’t your sister.”
