Chapter 7 - MY MOTHER'S SECRET
My mother answered on the second ring.
"Sweetheart?"
"Lock the doors."
She went silent.
"Mom."
"Lock every door right now."
Her breathing changed.
"Avery, what's happened?"
"Someone sent me a picture of you."
Another silence.
This one was different.
Not confusion.
Recognition.
My heart dropped.
"You know what M-17 is."
She didn't answer.
"Mom."
"I was hoping you'd never hear those words."
Luka looked at me sharply.
I put the call on speaker.
My mother began crying.
Her name was Margaret Reed.
She had spent thirteen years telling me my father's death was an accident.
Now she admitted she'd been lying.
"Your father became frightened about a year before he died."
She said.
"He started keeping copies of documents outside the house."
"What documents?"
"He wouldn't tell me everything."
"He said wealthy families were paying a hospital administrator to alter medical records."
"He said babies were being connected to the wrong fathers intentionally."
Luka stepped closer.
"Did Thomas mention Antonio Moretti?"
My mother inhaled sharply.
"Who is that?"
"My father."
Another long pause.
Then she whispered.
"You're Antonio's son."
Luka's expression tightened.
"You knew him."
"Yes."
"Where is he?"
"I don't know."
It sounded truthful.
Then my mother told us something neither of us expected.
Two days before my father's death, he had given her a metal key.
He told her that if anyone ever mentioned M-17 to Avery, she should use it.
"Use it where?"
I asked.
"A private storage facility outside Philadelphia."
"Unit 317."
"Why didn't you open it?"
"Because Thomas made me promise."
"Promise what?"
"That I would only open it if they came after you."
I looked down at the threatening photograph.
"They came."
Six hours later, my mother was brought to a secure hotel by Noah's team.
I couldn't leave the hospital until morning.
So Luka and Noah drove to the storage facility without me.
They called through video.
Unit 317 was tiny.
Dusty.
Nearly empty.
One metal box sat on the floor.
Inside were three cassette tapes.
A stack of photographs.
A ledger.
And a letter addressed to me.
Avery.
If you're reading this, I failed to keep the truth away from you.
I'm sorry.
M-17 is not a patient.
It is not a donor.
It is a list.
Seventeen cases.
Seventeen families.
Seventeen altered bloodlines.
I stopped reading.
Luka's voice came through the phone.
"Turn the page."
I did.
Case One.
BENNETT.
My fingers froze.
Not my name through marriage.
The original Bennett family.
The date beside it was twenty-nine years ago.
Mason was thirty years old.
I turned another page.
One sentence had been underlined by my father.
HARRISON BENNETT'S LEGAL HEIR IS NOT HIS BIOLOGICAL SON.
I stared at the words.
May you like
Mason had spent his entire life believing the Bennett empire belonged to him.
According to my dead father's file, Mason Bennett wasn't even a Bennett.
