Chapter 13 - THE ISLAND OF FALSE NAMES
Adrian drove us toward the coast.
When I told him Richard was tracking us, he did not seem surprised.
“That is why we are not going to the planned location.”
He abandoned the vehicle inside a parking garage and transferred us to an unmarked delivery truck.
We reached a marina before sunrise.
A fishing vessel carried us toward Blackwood Island.
It was the location Richard had used in his first false video.
Adrian believed Richard would never expect us to go willingly.
He was wrong.
The mansion appeared empty, but lights glowed beneath the ground.
Adrian opened a hidden entrance near the cliffs.
The underground complex contained dormitories, offices, and a private communications center.
This was where Richard managed identities.
Walls were lined with photographs of children and adults.
Each person had multiple names.
Multiple passports.
Multiple birth histories.
Some were buyers.
Some were victims.
Some had become both.
Adrian connected a drive to the central server.
His plan was to transmit the entire database to federal authorities and journalists simultaneously.
The upload began.
Twenty percent.
Thirty-five.
Then the doors locked.
Richard’s voice filled the room.
“My family has finally gathered.”
He appeared on a screen.
He was inside the complex.
Helen stepped beside me.
She had secretly boarded the vessel before departure.
Richard looked at her.
“My wife.”
“I was never your wife,” she replied.
“I was another person you purchased.”
Richard smiled.
He revealed a document showing Helen had been taken from an unmarried mother and placed with a wealthy family tied to the Mercer network.
Even Helen’s identity was false.
Richard used the revelation to destabilize her.
It almost worked.
Then Lily took Helen’s hand.
“You can still choose who you are.”
Helen looked down at her.
The words restored her strength.
The upload reached fifty percent.
Richard released gas into the communications room.
We covered the children’s faces and searched for an exit.
Sam found an access panel.
Rose remembered a tunnel from drawings she had seen at Hawthorne House.
Together, the twins opened an emergency passage.
Adrian remained behind to maintain the upload manually.
Lily refused to leave him.
“You just came back,” she cried.
Adrian knelt before her.
“I came back so you could have a future.”
Daniel stayed with his brother.
The rest of us entered the tunnel.
Richard intercepted us near an underground dock.
He held a weapon and wore an oxygen mask.
His calmness frightened me.
“You have Evelyn’s courage,” he told me.
“And Grant’s stubbornness.”
“I have nothing of Grant’s.”
“You carried his children.”
“My children are not extensions of him.”
Richard held out a portable scanner.
“Bring Lily forward.”
“No.”
“Her blood opens the account.”
Helen stepped between us.
“You have enough money.”
“It was never about money.”
Richard’s gaze moved toward Sam.
“It is about authorship. I created lives. I decided who became a Mercer, a Vale, a Bennett, or no one at all.”
“You stole lives.”
“Names are inventions.”
“Love is not.”
Richard’s eyes hardened.
He raised the gun.
A shot echoed.
Helen fell.
Evelyn screamed.
Elias fired back, striking Richard’s arm.
Chaos erupted.
I pulled the children behind a concrete pillar.
Richard escaped onto a speedboat.
In his struggle, he grabbed Rose and dragged her with him.
I jumped after them.
The boat accelerated away from the dock.
I caught the rear rail and pulled myself aboard.
Richard aimed his weapon at me.
Rose bit his hand.
The gun fell into the water.
I struck him with a metal hook.
The boat swerved toward the cliffs.
Richard seized my throat.
“You should have died in the hospital.”
“You first.”
I drove my knee into him.
He stumbled backward as the boat struck a submerged rock.
Rose and I were thrown into the sea.
Richard disappeared beneath the overturned vessel.
Rescue boats reached us minutes later.
Divers searched until sunset.
They found no body.
Again.
At the underground facility, Adrian and Daniel completed the upload.
The files spread across news networks worldwide.
The Mercer system could no longer be hidden.
Helen survived the gunshot.
Yet as rescuers carried her away, Sam stared at the sea.
“He isn’t dead,” he said.
I asked how he knew.
Sam opened his hand.
May you like
He held a waterproof tracker taken from Richard’s coat.
A signal moved steadily toward the mainland.
