Chapter 4: The Revelation
1012 Words
Cynthia’s glasses hit the floor with a sharp clatter. The lenses caught the dim light and threw it back at her.
Dominic’s hand was still locked around her wrist. Not hard. Desperate. Like if he let go, she’d disappear again. His eyes moved over her face. Nose. Jaw. Then her eyes. "Six years," he whispered. His voice was rough, broken. The CEO was gone. This was the man from the dark room. "Six years I chased every surrogate agency from here to Europe. I remember how your skin felt. How fast your heart was beating. And your voice."
Cynthia tried to pull away. Her pulse was hammering against his palm. "Mr. Lancaster, you’re mistaken…"
"Stop lying!" The word cracked through the room. Toby looked up from the desk drawer. Dominic stepped in, backing her against the leather sofa. "You had laryngitis. You could barely whisper. I thought I was crazy earlier because you were forcing your voice higher. But just now. That rasp. It’s you. You’re the woman from the Grand Horizon."
Cynthia’s chest hurt. Six years of walls. Gone in ten seconds. "Yes," she said. No fake accent. Just her real voice, soft and tired. Tears burned her eyes. "Yes, it was me. Happy now, Mr. Lancaster? You found your ghost. Let me and my son leave."
"Your son?"
His eyes cut past her to Toby, who was standing now, small and furious. Then back to her. "You gave birth to a boy at my family’s clinic six years ago. My grandfather’s lawyers paid you. We have the receipt. So how did you walk out with another version of my heir?"
"He’s not a version of anything!" The fear flipped into rage. She jerked her wrist free. "He’s my son. Your doctors were so busy delivering the 'perfect Lancaster bloodline' to your grandfather that they didn’t even check for a second heartbeat. They took Leo out of the room and left me there. Alone. Bleeding."
Dominic went pale. "What?"
"I went into labor again ten minutes later," Cynthia said, and the words tore out of her. All of it she’d buried. "Alone. Toby was a mistake in their paperwork. A miracle. And the second I held him, I knew what your family would do. Lock him up like Leo. Raise him without me. So I ran. I hid him from you. And I’d do it again."
Dominic staggered back half a step like she’d hit him. His family had told him it was a clean, single birth. They’d handled Leo while he was blind. They never told him because they didn’t know.
"Mommy." Toby’s voice was small but steady. He walked over and stood in front of her, between her and Dominic. Fists clenched. "Don’t yell at my mommy. That’s mean."
Dominic looked down at him. The defiance. The sharp eyes. It was him, thirty years ago. Something in Dominic’s chest cracked. Anger and something that felt terrifyingly like fatherhood collided.
Then the intercom buzzed.
"Sir! Master Dominic!" Harrison sounded panicked. "We’ve got a problem in the East Wing. It’s Leo."
Dominic unlocked the door and yanked it open. "What?"
"Young Master Leo saw the other boy earlier," Harrison said, out of breath. "He got out while the nanny was making dinner. He’s locked himself in the main server room in the basement. He’s overriding the security. He’s shutting down the power grid."
Cynthia’s stomach dropped. She knew why. Toby must’ve told him about the vent bypass. Leo was trying to make a distraction so Toby could get out.
"He’s messing it up," Toby muttered, shaking his head. "He’s doing the grid crash wrong. He’s gonna trigger the fire lockdown."
Dominic was already moving. "Security to the basement. Now!"
"Sir, the door is titanium," Harrison said as the hallway lights started flickering red. "If the lockdown starts, the oxygen seals close. He’ll be trapped."
"Toby, stay with me!" Cynthia grabbed his hand and ran after Dominic down the concrete stairs. She didn’t care about secrets anymore. One of her sons was down there.
Red emergency lights pulsed. The air felt wrong. At the bottom, three guards were pounding on a seamless metal door. Through the small glass window, Leo sat on the floor with a military tablet. Fingers flying. Sirens screaming.
Above the door: LOCKDOWN INITIATION: 60 SECONDS.
"Leo! Open the door!" Dominic slammed his fists on the titanium. His voice broke. "Leo, stop!"
Leo didn’t look up.
"He can’t hear you," Toby said, pulling away and running to the wall terminal. He stood on his toes and started typing. "There’s a firewall. He’s looping the command."
"Can you get through?" Dominic dropped to his knees next to him. For the first time he wasn’t talking to a kid. He was talking to someone who understood the system.
"I need a Level 5 alpha key," Toby said, eyes scanning code. "Or the air seals close in forty seconds."
Dominic pulled a black hardware token from his pocket and slammed it in. "Use mine. Do it."
Toby’s hands blurred. Blue. Green. Lines of code rewritten. Inside, Leo finally looked up. His eyes went wide when he saw Toby on the other side of the glass.
LOCKDOWN INITIATION: 10 SECONDS.
"Come on," Toby whispered.
CLANG. The bolts pulled back. The door hissed open.
Cynthia didn’t think. She ran in and grabbed Leo, pulling him into her chest. "Baby. Thank God."
Leo stiffened, then buried his face in her shirt and held on. Dominic stood in the doorway, breathing hard. Relief all over him.
For one second it looked like a family. Cynthia with Leo. Toby beside them.
Then the monitors flashed red.
Warning: Master Override Key used during unauthorized breach. External data leak detected. Broadcasting to Lancaster Board and Raymond Lancaster.
Dominic went white.
Raymond. His cousin. The one who’d been waiting to call him unstable and take the company. He was about to get a live feed of Dominic standing over two identical boys.
The radio crackled. "Sir! Raymond’s convoy just broke through the front gates. He’s got state police with him."
- Writer
