Chapter 7 - THE TRUTH GABRIEL NEVER TOLD HER
Laya couldn't breathe.
Gabriel stared at the photograph.
The teenager in it looked different from the man beside her.
Younger.
Angrier.
Still human in a way that adulthood had nearly erased.
Laya turned the photograph over again.
HE WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO SURVIVE.
“Who wrote this?”
“My mother.”
Gabriel's face tightened.
“Probably.”
“You don't know?”
“No.”
She looked at him.
“Then tell me the truth.”
“I've been trying.”
“No. You've been giving me pieces.”
He didn't argue.
Laya held up the ledger.
“This is why everyone is after me.”
“Yes.”
“And my mother knew your family.”
“Yes.”
“And you met me when I was a child.”
“Yes.”
“And you never told me.”
Gabriel's eyes lowered.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He took a long breath.
“Because your mother asked me to forget you existed.”
Laya's expression broke.
“Why?”
“She was afraid of my father.”
“And you?”
“I was afraid of him too.”
The admission stunned her.
Gabriel walked to the window.
“My father was not simply a criminal. He was a man who believed people were possessions.”
“What did he want from my mother?”
“The ledger.”
“What was in it?”
“Everything.”
He looked back at her.
“Payments. Names. Secret accounts. Judges. police. doctors. union leaders. businessmen. politicians. people who could make charges disappear.”
Laya stared at the leather cover.
“And my mother stole it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“She discovered children were being used as leverage.”
Laya went still.
“What children?”
“Children of witnesses. Children of politicians. Children of people who refused to cooperate.”
Her stomach turned.
“My mother knew?”
“She helped some of them escape.”
“And your father?”
“He found out.”
“What did he do?”
Gabriel's face hardened.
“He ordered her killed.”
Laya swallowed.
“But she wasn't.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I warned her.”
“You saved her.”
“Yes.”
“Then why does she say you were never supposed to survive?”
Gabriel looked at the photograph.
“Because my father eventually learned what I had done.”
Laya's voice softened.
“What happened?”
“He sent me away.”
“Where?”
“Not away.”
Gabriel paused.
“To die.”
The room became silent.
“I was sixteen,” he continued. “He put me in a car with three men. They were supposed to take me to a property outside the city and bury me.”
Laya stared at him.
“What?”
“I escaped.”
“How?”
“I killed one.”
The words were quiet.
“And ran.”
He looked at his hands.
“I was found by a man named Victor Hale.”
“Who?”
“My father's enemy.”
Gabriel laughed bitterly.
“He taught me how to survive.”
“That's how you became what you are.”
“No.”
Gabriel looked at her.
“I became what I am because I decided no one would ever own me again.”
Laya looked away.
She understood more than she wanted to.
Then she noticed something.
A page in the ledger was folded.
She opened it.
Her mother's name appeared.
Next to it was another name.
Gabriel Mercer.
But beside Gabriel's name was a handwritten note.
PROTECTIVE ASSET.
Laya looked up.
“What does this mean?”
Gabriel read it.
His expression changed.
“I don't know.”
“That's a lie.”
“No.”
“You've known something.”
“I suspected.”
“What?”
“That your mother didn't just know my family.”
He looked at the page.
“She was working with someone inside it.”
“Who?”
Gabriel turned the page.
The next name made him stop.
Arthur Pendleton.
Laya felt sick.
“No.”
Gabriel nodded.
“He was there.”
“My chief?”
“Yes.”
“Twenty-seven years ago?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Gabriel's voice dropped.
“He wasn't a surgeon then.”
“What was he?”
“A fixer.”
Laya stepped backward.
“My entire career…”
She couldn't finish.
Gabriel approached.
“Laya.”
“Don't.”
He stopped.
“I need air.”
She opened the balcony door.
Cold Chicago wind entered.
For several seconds, she stood there.
Then she said, “You knew my mother.”
“Yes.”
“You knew Pendleton.”
“Yes.”
“You knew there was a ledger.”
“I suspected.”
“And you brought me here.”
“I brought you here because someone tried to kill me.”
“That's not the whole truth.”
“No.”
“What else?”
Gabriel looked at her.
“I knew the moment I saw your name at the hospital.”
Her heart stopped.
“You knew who I was?”
“Yes.”
“You recognized me.”
“Yes.”
“And you still had me kidnapped.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because if I had left you there, Pendleton would have taken you.”
Laya stared at him.
“You don't know that.”
“I do.”
“How?”
“Because he tried to reach you before I did.”
She remembered the hospital.
The anonymous donation.
The fake leave request.
Someone had already accessed her records.
Gabriel continued.
“I sent Dominic because I knew Pendleton was coming.”
“You could have warned me.”
“He would have killed you.”
“You could have told me the truth.”
“I didn't know who you would trust.”
“So you decided for me.”
“Yes.”
Her eyes filled with anger.
“You don't get to decide my life.”
“No.”
He looked at her.
“I know that now.”
The words were so quiet they almost disappeared.
Then the door opened.
Elias entered.
His shoulder was bandaged.
He looked at Gabriel.
“We have a problem.”
“What?”
“Pendleton has the police.”
Gabriel's expression hardened.
“How many?”
“All of them.”
“Chicago?”
“State police too.”
Laya stepped forward.
“What about federal agents?”
Elias looked at her.
“Some are already here.”
She stared.
“What?”
He handed her a phone.
A live video showed the building surrounded by vehicles.
Police.
Unmarked SUVs.
News vans.
And one black sedan.
Pendleton stood beside it.
He looked directly at the camera.
Then the screen changed.
A message appeared.
BRING ME THE DOCTOR.
Gabriel looked at Laya.
“No.”
She shook her head.
“They'll come inside.”
“I know.”
“Then what do we do?”
Gabriel reached for the ledger.
“We stop running.”
He opened it to the center.
A map fell out.
Laya unfolded it.
A red circle marked a location beneath Chicago Mercy Hospital.
She looked at him.
“What is that?”
Gabriel's eyes hardened.
“Where your mother hid the rest.”
“The rest of what?”
He looked at her.
“The proof that could destroy everyone.”
Then Elias said the one thing that made both brothers go silent.
“And the person guarding it is your mother.”
Laya's knees nearly gave out.
“My mother is dead.”
Elias shook his head.
“That's what they wanted you to believe.”
Outside, sirens screamed.
And for the first time in twenty-two years, Laya Hastings wondered if the funeral she remembered had been a lie.
They entered Chicago Mercy through the old ambulance tunnel.
The hospital was nearly empty.
Evacuation orders had moved most patients to other facilities, but a few emergency cases remained under armed supervision.
Laya hated seeing the place like this.
This had been her world.
Her first residency.
Her first overnight shift.
Her first patient who died despite everything she did.
Now every hallway looked like evidence.
Gabriel walked beside her.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Good.”
She looked at him.
“Good?”
“Means you're still honest.”
She almost smiled.
They reached the old operating theater.
The door was sealed.
Laya placed her hand against a scanner.
Nothing happened.
Helena stepped forward.
“Use the blood sample.”
Laya frowned.
“How?”
“There's a slot.”
She inserted the vial.
The scanner lit.
A voice announced:
“Genetic authentication pending.”
Gabriel looked at Helena.
“You said blood.”
“I said blood would open it.”
The machine scanned.
“Match confirmed.”
The wall moved.
Behind it was a staircase.
They descended.
The archive was enormous.
Shelves.
Servers.
Boxes.
Photographs.
A wall of names.
Laya walked toward the center.
A single desk stood beneath a light.
On it was a black ledger.
But it looked different from the one they had found.
This one was old.
Handwritten.
Worn.
Real.
Gabriel touched the cover.
“My father.”
Helena nodded.
“He wrote every transaction himself.”
Laya opened it.
Names filled the pages.
Money.
Dates.
Orders.
Disappearances.
Deaths.
Then she saw her mother's name.
Next to it was a note:
PROTECT HELENA HASTINGS.
Laya looked at Gabriel.
“He protected her.”
Gabriel nodded.
“And you.”
She turned the page.
Her own name.
LAYA HASTINGS — PROTECTED.
Underneath:
LENA HASTINGS — REMOVED.
Laya's chest tightened.
“Removed?”
Helena whispered, “He separated you.”
“Why?”
“Because he believed one twin could be saved.”
“And he chose me.”
“Yes.”
Laya looked at the page.
Then she found something else.
A second handwriting.
Pendleton's.
A note in the margin:
IF EITHER GIRL SURVIVES, THE SYSTEM MUST REMAIN CLOSED.
Gabriel looked up.
“The system.”
Helena nodded.
“What system?”
“The financial network.”
Elias stepped toward the servers.
“This isn't just a ledger.”
He pointed.
“It's a live database.”
Laya stared.
Every transaction was still updating.
Every name.
Every account.
Every shell company.
Someone was using it.
Now.
Gabriel looked at the screen.
“Who has access?”
A username appeared.
ADMINISTRATOR: A. PENDLETON.
Laya felt cold.
He was still inside the system.
Still controlling everything.
Then another name appeared.
ADMINISTRATOR: G. MERCER.
Gabriel froze.
“I don't have access.”
The system replied:
YOU DO.
A password prompt appeared.
Gabriel stared at it.
Laya looked at him.
“What password?”
He closed his eyes.
A memory surfaced.
A red door.
His father's voice.
A sixteen-year-old Gabriel typing numbers.
He whispered the password.
The system unlocked.
May you like
And the first file was labeled:
PROJECT HASTINGS — FINAL PHASE.
