Chapter 9 - The Brother in the Shadows
“Hello, brother.”
Andrew Cole stared at the screen.
For the first time since he had entered the Harrow study, he looked completely defenseless.
The man beside the little boy had Andrew’s eyes.
Andrew’s jaw.
Even the slight tilt of his head was identical.
But there was something colder in the stranger’s smile.
“Edward,” Andrew whispered.
The man smiled wider.
“So Victor did tell you my name.”
Victor Harrow backed against the desk.
“You’re dead.”
Edward laughed.
“That sentence has become embarrassingly meaningless in this family.”
Daniel stepped toward the phone.
“Where is the boy?”
Edward looked at him.
“Straight to the child. Good.”
“Where is he?”
“Safe.”
“You’re holding a crying three-year-old hostage.”
Edward’s expression barely changed.
“I’m protecting my son.”
Claire stopped breathing.
Daniel froze.
“Your son?”
Edward looked down at the boy.
The child wiped his eyes.
Then Edward said quietly, “Biologically? No.”
Claire understood before Daniel did.
“No.”
Edward looked directly into the camera.
“Yes, Claire.”
Daniel’s hand tightened around the phone.
“What are you saying?”
“This child was created from one of the embryos stolen from your fertility account.”
Claire pulled her newborn closer.
The room seemed to spin.
Daniel stared at the boy.
“That would make him…”
“Yours.”
“No.”
Edward shrugged.
“DNA is remarkably indifferent to denial.”
Daniel’s face hardened.
“Who carried him?”
“A woman who wanted a baby more than she wanted answers.”
“Name.”
“Emily Carter.”
Andrew suddenly looked up.
“I know Emily.”
Edward smiled.
“Of course you do.”
Andrew went pale.
“She was my patient.”
“She was your patient because I arranged it.”
Andrew shook his head.
“She came to me with postpartum cardiomyopathy.”
“And you never wondered why I sent her to you?”
“You sent her?”
Edward laughed softly.
“Still catching up.”
Claire looked at Andrew.
“When?”
“Three years ago.”
“Did you meet the boy?”
Andrew stared at the screen.
“Yes.”
Daniel turned.
“You knew him?”
“I saw him twice. He was an infant.”
“And last Christmas?”
Andrew shook his head.
“I was told he was Emily’s nephew.”
Daniel stepped closer.
“You brought him into my house.”
“I had no idea.”
Claire remembered the child now.
He had stood beside their Christmas tree clutching a wooden train.
Quiet.
Shy.
Daniel had crouched beside him and repaired one of its broken wheels.
The boy had smiled at Daniel for the rest of the evening.
Claire suddenly felt sick.
“He followed Daniel everywhere.”
Andrew closed his eyes.
Edward smiled.
“I wanted to see what would happen.”
Daniel stared at the screen.
“You used him to test me?”
“I wanted to see whether blood recognized blood.”
“He was three.”
“He liked you.”
“That doesn’t make what you did less sick.”
Edward’s smile disappeared.
“Careful, Daniel. You still don’t understand who the dangerous people are.”
Michael stepped forward.
“We understand you.”
Edward looked at him.
“Michael Vale.”
Michael’s face tightened.
“You know me.”
“I know everything Victor tried to erase.”
Victor found his voice.
“You know nothing.”
Edward looked almost bored.
“Still alive, Father?”
Victor’s eyes burned.
“You should have stayed buried.”
Andrew turned on Victor.
“You knew.”
Victor said nothing.
“You knew Edward survived.”
“I suspected.”
Edward laughed.
“He knew.”
Andrew’s face hardened.
“What did you do to him?”
Victor looked at his son.
“What was necessary.”
Edward’s expression changed.
For one second, the coldness vanished.
Something wounded appeared underneath.
“I was eight years old.”
The room fell silent.
Andrew stared.
Edward continued.
“When Eleanor discovered Victor had expanded her research, she tried to take me away.”
Margaret whispered, “I remember.”
Rebecca looked at her.
“You knew Edward?”
“I saw him once.”
Edward nodded.
“Margaret was there the night my mother tried to escape.”
Andrew looked between them.
“What happened?”
Victor answered.
“Eleanor was unstable.”
Margaret snapped.
“She was terrified.”
Victor ignored her.
“She believed everyone around her was involved in the project.”
“Because they were,” Edward said.
Andrew stared at Victor.
“What happened to my brother?”
Victor’s jaw tightened.
“I sent him away.”
“Where?”
“A private treatment facility.”
Edward laughed.
“Call it what it was.”
Victor said nothing.
Edward leaned toward the camera.
“A laboratory.”
Claire instinctively covered her daughter’s head.
Daniel noticed.
His anger deepened.
Andrew looked devastated.
“You were eight.”
“Eight years, four months.”
“And they experimented on you?”
Edward’s eyes stayed on Victor.
“Every week.”
Victor lifted his chin.
“You carried Eleanor’s strongest marker expression.”
“I was your grandson.”
“You were unique.”
“I was a child.”
Victor said nothing.
Edward’s voice became quieter.
“My mother came for me three times.”
Andrew whispered, “Eleanor.”
“The third time, she got me out.”
“Where did you go?”
“Everywhere.”
Victor laughed bitterly.
“Running.”
“Surviving.”
“And now you’ve become exactly what you accuse me of being.”
Edward’s face changed.
Daniel caught it.
“What does he mean?”
Edward ignored him.
Victor looked at Claire.
“Ask him how he found your embryos.”
Claire went still.
Daniel stared at Edward.
“Answer him.”
Edward’s jaw tightened.
Victor smiled.
“He didn’t stumble onto Bellweather.”
“Shut up.”
“He built the transfer network.”
Andrew recoiled.
“No.”
Edward looked at him.
“Not the way he means.”
Victor laughed.
“There is always a justification, isn’t there?”
Daniel stepped toward the phone.
“Did you steal our embryos?”
Edward didn’t answer immediately.
That was enough.
Claire whispered, “Oh my God.”
“Claire, listen—”
“No.”
“I was trying to remove them from Victor’s system.”
“You put them inside other women.”
“I had no safe storage facility.”
Daniel stared.
“So you implanted them?”
“Not personally.”
“That’s your defense?”
Edward’s voice sharpened.
“Victor had already flagged them for destruction if they didn’t meet his criteria.”
Claire felt tears filling her eyes.
“They were ours.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
She leaned toward the phone.
“You don’t know what it was like to sit in that clinic and hear that we had seven embryos. You don’t know how many nights Daniel and I talked about them like they were possibilities we were responsible for.”
Edward said nothing.
“You decided for us.”
“I saved them.”
“You stole them.”
The words landed.
Edward’s expression tightened.
Claire continued.
“You can call it protection. Victoria can call locking me in a bathroom protection. Victor can call experiments medicine. Every person in this family has a beautiful word for taking someone else’s choice.”
No one spoke.
Daniel looked at Claire.
Pride and pain mixed in his face.
Edward finally lowered his eyes.
“You’re right.”
Victor scoffed.
Edward ignored him.
“I was wrong.”
Claire hadn’t expected that.
Edward looked at the boy.
“But he exists now.”
Claire’s anger broke around something more complicated.
The child was innocent.
Completely innocent.
“What’s his name?”
Edward looked down.
“Ethan.”
The boy looked toward the camera when he heard his name.
Claire’s chest tightened.
“Where is Emily?”
Edward’s silence changed everything.
Daniel noticed.
“Where is the woman who carried him?”
Edward looked away.
“Emily died seven months ago.”
Claire closed her eyes.
“How?”
“Heart failure.”
Andrew whispered, “Her condition returned.”
Edward nodded.
“She made me promise Ethan would never enter Victor’s system.”
Daniel looked at the little boy.
“And you kept him?”
“Yes.”
“Did Emily know whose embryo she received?”
“Not at first.”
“At the end?”
“Yes.”
“What did she want?”
Edward’s voice softened.
“She wanted Ethan to know the truth when he was old enough.”
Daniel looked at Claire.
Neither knew what to say.
Their newborn daughter slept against Claire’s chest.
Somewhere on the phone was a little boy created from the same stolen reproductive material.
A child who had already lost the only mother he knew.
Claire whispered, “Bring him here.”
Edward stared.
Daniel turned to her.
“Claire.”
“He shouldn’t be with strangers while adults fight over him.”
Edward’s expression darkened.
“I’m not a stranger.”
“To him?”
“No.”
Claire looked at Ethan.
“Sweetheart, is Edward your uncle?”
Ethan nodded.
“Uncle Eddie.”
Edward’s face softened.
Claire understood.
Whatever else Edward had done, the boy trusted him.
“Is he kind to you?”
Ethan nodded again.
“He makes pancakes.”
For one strange second, nobody knew what to do with that.
Daniel exhaled.
Then Ethan said, “Mommy said Mr. Daniel would find me.”
Daniel froze.
“What?”
Edward looked surprised.
Ethan continued.
“Mommy showed me your picture.”
Daniel’s voice softened.
“What did she tell you?”
“She said if Uncle Eddie got scared, I should find you.”
Edward’s face changed.
“Ethan.”
The boy looked at him.
“You said I could tell.”
Edward looked away.
Daniel stared.
“What are you scared of, Edward?”
Edward didn’t answer.
Victor smiled.
“There.”
Andrew turned.
“What?”
Victor looked delighted.
“The frightened child underneath all that theater.”
Edward’s eyes hardened.
Victor continued.
“Tell them why you called.”
“I called because Ethan deserves protection.”
“No.”
Victor tapped the desk.
“You called because you found Eleanor.”
Every face changed.
Andrew stepped forward.
“What?”
Edward stared at Victor.
Victor smiled.
“You found Mother, didn’t you?”
Edward’s silence confirmed it.
Andrew grabbed the phone from Daniel.
“Where is she?”
Edward looked at his brother.
“Andrew—”
“Where is our mother?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know if the woman I found is really her.”
Margaret stepped closer.
“What does that mean?”
Edward looked off-camera.
Then back.
“She knows things only Eleanor should know.”
Andrew’s face tightened.
“But?”
“She hasn’t aged the way she should have.”
Victor stopped smiling.
That frightened Claire more than anything.
Michael noticed.
“You know why.”
Victor said nothing.
Andrew turned.
“Father.”
Victor looked toward the window.
“What did you do to Eleanor?”
“Nothing.”
Edward laughed.
“Another lie.”
The phone camera moved.
Edward lifted Ethan into his arms and walked down a corridor.
White walls passed behind him.
Daniel frowned.
“Where are you?”
Edward stopped at a door.
“Somewhere Victor believed had been destroyed.”
He entered a code.
The door opened.
A hospital room appeared.
A woman lay inside.
Silver hair.
Thin face.
Medical monitors.
Andrew’s knees nearly gave way.
“Mom.”
Victor whispered, “No.”
The woman opened her eyes.
Edward moved closer.
“Eleanor?”
She looked directly at the phone.
Then she saw Andrew.
Her face filled with emotion.
“Thomas.”
Andrew covered his mouth.
“I’m here.”
Eleanor’s eyes moved across the screen.
She saw Victor.
Fear replaced everything.
“Get him away from Claire.”
Daniel frowned.
“How does she know Claire?”
Eleanor struggled upright.
“Claire?”
Claire moved into view.
Eleanor stared at the newborn.
Her eyes widened.
“You had the baby.”
“Yes.”
“Listen to me.”
The monitor beside Eleanor began beeping.
Edward turned.
“Mom?”
Eleanor ignored him.
“Claire, the birthmark.”
Claire looked at her daughter’s shoulder.
“The three lines?”
Eleanor nodded urgently.
“It isn’t a natural birthmark.”
Everyone froze.
Samuel stepped closer.
“What?”
Eleanor’s breathing became labored.
“It’s a reaction.”
Claire’s heart raced.
“To what?”
“The prenatal compound.”
Daniel stared.
“What compound?”
Eleanor looked terrified.
“The injections.”
Claire remembered Bellweather.
The fertility medications.
Later, the supplements Victoria’s private physician had recommended.
Her hand shook.
“What did they give me?”
Eleanor tried to answer.
The video suddenly glitched.
“Edward?”
Static.
Then the picture returned.
Edward was staring toward the hospital-room door.
Someone was outside.
“Who is it?” Andrew asked.
Edward whispered, “No one knows this location.”
A knock.
Three times.
Eleanor’s face went white.
“Turn off the lights.”
Edward did.
Ethan began crying.
Daniel leaned toward the phone.
“Edward, get the boy out.”
“I’m trying.”
Another knock.
Then a woman’s voice came through the door.
“Edward.”
Margaret gasped.
Claire recognized the voice too.
Victoria.
Daniel stared.
“Mom?”
Edward backed away.
“That’s impossible.”
Andrew looked at him.
“Why?”
Edward’s face emptied.
“Because Victoria is still at Bellweather.”
Daniel looked at the other phone.
The Bellweather feed returned by itself.
Victoria stood in the laboratory.
Live.
She was looking into the camera.
At the exact same moment, the woman outside Eleanor’s room knocked again.
“Edward, open the door.”
Andrew went pale.
Two Victorias.
One at Bellweather.
One outside Eleanor’s room.
Claire’s emergency phone vibrated.
A message appeared.
Rebecca read it.
Her face drained of color.
“What?” Claire whispered.
Rebecca turned the screen toward them.
VICTORIA HARROW DIED SIX YEARS AGO.
Daniel stopped breathing.
The hospital-room door unlocked from the outside.
The woman stepped in.
May you like
Eleanor screamed.
And Daniel finally saw the face of the person who had been pretending to be his mother.
