Chapter 10 - THE MAN WHO WAS SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD
Selena disappeared for thirty-six hours.
So did the DNA envelope.
Police issued a warrant after reviewing hallway footage.
The recording showed her entering the building in a maintenance uniform.
She had spent years working inside medical systems.
She knew how to become invisible.
But she made one mistake.
She called Mason.
He claimed he didn't answer.
Phone records proved otherwise.
The call lasted four minutes and seventeen seconds.
I confronted him through Noah.
Mason finally admitted Selena told him where Antonio Moretti had been living.
A private assisted-care facility in Vermont.
Under another name.
Luka drove there immediately.
I went with him.
My mother stayed with the baby under protection.
The facility sat on twelve quiet acres surrounded by pine trees.
No sign identified it from the road.
Inside, we found a room registered to Anthony Moore.
The bed was empty.
The closet was open.
A nurse told us Mr. Moore had been removed by family twenty-four hours earlier.
"What family?"
Luka asked.
She checked the paperwork.
"His daughter."
Luka stared at her.
"I don't have a sister."
Security footage showed Selena Cross pushing an elderly man in a wheelchair toward a vehicle.
Luka watched the screen without speaking.
The man was older.
Thinner.
His hair completely gray.
But Luka recognized him.
His father.
Alive.
After thirteen years.
Luka placed one hand against the screen.
I had never seen him break before.
Not when the paternity result arrived.
Not when records burned.
Not when his father's archive was robbed.
But now his eyes filled.
"He was alive."
I stood beside him.
"I know."
"He was alive all this time."
I touched his hand.
It was the first time I touched him intentionally.
He didn't pull away.
Neither did I.
The facility director provided the admission file.
Antonio had arrived eleven years earlier.
He suffered neurological damage after a severe head injury.
He had limited speech.
No legal next of kin had been listed.
His bills were paid by a shell corporation.
Noah traced the corporation within hours.
Bennett Legacy Holdings.
A company controlled by Harrison Bennett.
Mason's father had been paying to hide Luka's father for eleven years.
Why?
Because Antonio knew the truth.
Not only about Mason.
About M-17.
About my father.
About everything.
Then police found Selena's abandoned car.
Inside was the stolen DNA envelope.
Still sealed.
She hadn't taken it to destroy it.
She had taken it to exchange it.
On the passenger seat was a handwritten note.
BRING ME THE LEDGER.
YOU GET ANTONIO.
Luka looked at me.
"No."
I knew what he meant.
He wouldn't trade the only surviving evidence.
But beneath Selena's message was another sentence.
May you like
THIS ISN'T ABOUT YOUR BABY ANYMORE.
HARRISON KNOWS AVERY'S FATHER DIDN'T DIE IN THE CRASH.
