Chapter 8 - The Brother in Black
Lucian answered on the third ring.
“Tell me about your sister,” Adrian said.
Silence.
“Tell me now.”
Lucian's breath scraped the line. “Not over the phone.”
“That answer is getting old.”
“My office. Thirty minutes. Come through the loading dock.”
Mara took the phone. “If Sophie gets hurt because you're protecting yourself, I'll tell the whole world your name.”
“Fair,” Lucian said softly. “Bring the photograph.”
The office tower was all glass, steel, and hired silence. Lucian waited in a windowless archive room. For once, his tie was crooked.
He placed a medical chart on the table. “Dad and Evelyn weren't lovers. She was a whistleblower. She used a false surname to hide one of the children Nightjar planned to sell.”
Mara's pulse stuttered. “Me?”
“Yes. You were born to a woman named Lena Ruiz. Evelyn took you before the transfer.”
Adrian held up the photograph. “Why the Voss bracelet?”
“Because Nightjar entered every child as family in its internal registry. The Voss name kept them off the public books.”
Mara sank into a chair. Her mother had saved her life, then spent years living with a lie. “Did she ever meet Lena?”
Lucian looked away. “Lena died trying to get you back.”
“Who killed her?”
“Dad ordered it.”
Adrian shoved a stack of files across the room. “You knew all this?”
“I found out after the crash. I was nineteen. I was scared.”
“You were nineteen,” Adrian shot back. “Not five.”
Lucian didn't defend himself. Instead he handed Mara a drive. “I spent years rebuilding Evelyn's evidence. I was ready to go public tonight. Someone found out.”
A security alarm chirped outside the room. Lucian checked his phone. His expression tightened.
“Someone just locked down the building.”
Overhead speakers crackled. A calm female voice announced, “Attention, occupants. A fire has been reported on the forty-second floor.”
They were on forty-two.
May you like
Then the archive room's ventilation grille began pumping black smoke.
THE LAST DANCE AT BLACKTHORN HALL •
