Chapter 7 - My Father Built the First False Death Record, and Lucas Had Been Trying to Undo It
The photograph felt heavy.
My father's smile looked familiar.
He was standing beside men I feared.
“Tell me what he did,” I said.
My mother lowered her eyes.
“He designed their records system.”
“He was a criminal?”
“He thought he was protecting patients.”
She explained the original program.
It had concealed domestic violence survivors.
New names protected people escaping danger.
Then Vincent took control.
He sold identities.
He erased witnesses.
And he trapped people who knew too much.
My father tried to shut it down.
He disappeared soon afterward.
Lucas had been his assistant.
“He helped me get out once,” my mother said.
“Vincent brought me back.”
I found Lucas outside the ambulance.
“Did you know my father?”
He nodded.
“Did you help him?”
“I failed him.”
He showed me an old letter.
My father had written it before vanishing.
EVELYN MUST NEVER BE USED AS LEVERAGE.
My throat tightened.
“Then why did you hire me?”
Lucas looked toward Gabriel's hospital.
“Because Gabriel asked for someone Vincent couldn't buy.”
“That's not an answer.”
“No,” he said.
“It isn't.”
He finally told me the truth.
My father's backup records were encrypted.
The recovery phrase was something only I knew.
A childhood sentence.
The last words he spoke to me.
I stared at Lucas.
May you like
Because I remembered those words perfectly.
And someone was standing behind him, listening.
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