The Ex-husband Return

The Price Of A Secret

 

The photograph wouldn't leave Caleb's mind. His mother, alive, standing beside Arthur Hayes. For twenty-five years he'd believed Isabella had died before he was old enough to understand what losing her meant, growing up on fragments: a photograph, a perfume bottle, a handful of memories so faint he sometimes wondered if he'd invented them. Arthur had always gone silent when Caleb asked, Sylvia always changed the subject, and when he was finally old enough to demand answers, his father had given him the same simple, terrible, believable story. Your mother died in an accident. Now Caleb knew it had been a lie, and his father had known it too. He had spent years believing Arthur was simply a weak man who had failed him. Weakness was one thing. Betrayal was another.

The convoy raced through the industrial district. Caleb sat in the back of the SUV with the photograph still in his hand, Marcus across from him, Valeria beside the driver, the security team following in two vehicles behind. The warehouse had been empty. Lora was gone. Julian was gone. Arthur was gone. Now Caleb had a choice: follow the trail to Switzerland, or stay in Metro City and find Lora. He already knew which one he'd choose.

"How long until the jet reaches Switzerland?" he asked.

"Approximately four hours," Marcus said.

"Then we have four hours to find Lora. After that, we go to Switzerland."

"You can't do both."

"Watch me."

Marcus leaned forward. "Caleb, if Isabella is alive..."

"She is."

"You don't know that. Photographs can be manipulated."

"Not that one." Caleb had studied the lighting, the shadows, the angle, every imperfection. It was real. His mother was alive, but that didn't mean she was safe, and it didn't mean she was innocent. He'd learned one thing in the last twenty-four hours: none of the people he'd trusted were who they claimed to be. His father had lied. Marcus had hidden information. Richard had betrayed him. Julian had stolen from him. And Lora had betrayed him in the worst possible way, and yet someone had kidnapped her anyway, which complicated everything he thought he understood.

"You need to hear something," Marcus said. "Your mother's letter. You read only the last part. You read the words, not what was underneath them." He pulled the letter from his jacket and handed it over.

Caleb unfolded the paper, the handwriting elegant and familiar in a way that ached. He'd spent years wondering what his mother's voice sounded like. Now he had her words, and he read them again, slower this time.

Caleb. If you are reading this, then I am dead, or they want you to think I am. There are things about your father you must never know, not because I want to hide them, but because knowing them will put you in danger. Arthur was never the man he pretended to be. He will tell you he loved me, and perhaps he did, in his own way, but love does not always make a man loyal. Sometimes fear is stronger. If Arthur ever tells you I died, do not believe him.

Caleb's fingers tightened around the paper. His mother had known Arthur would lie about her death. She had known Caleb would find the truth someday, and she had left him a warning instead of an explanation.

The day you discover the truth, you will already have inherited more than I wanted you to have. The money is not your inheritance.

"What does that mean?" Caleb asked.

"I don't know," Marcus said.

"You're lying."

"I'm not. I don't know the whole story."

"Then who does?"

"Your mother."

Caleb released his collar, his mind racing. If the twenty billion dollars wasn't his real inheritance, then what was? He read on. You will believe the money makes you powerful. It doesn't. It only makes you visible. They will come for you once you take control. Every attack, every threat, every kidnapping, all of it had started the moment he inherited Apex. His mother had known this was coming. When they come, do not run. Because if they have found you, then it means they have already found me.

The letter slipped from his hand. Marcus caught it.

"She knew," Caleb said, his face pale. "Whoever is behind this. My mother knew they would come."

Toby's voice crackled through the vehicle's comm system. "Caleb, I've been tracking the vehicle that took Lora. It disappeared, but I think I know where. The old Metro City underground rail network."

"Those tunnels were sealed twenty years ago," Marcus said.

"After the bombing," Toby said.

"What bombing?" Caleb asked.

Marcus hesitated before answering. Twenty-five years ago, an explosion in the underground transit system had killed forty-seven people, and the investigation had been shut down by federal authorities, citing national security. The same year his mother disappeared.

"I've found the vehicle," Toby said. "Underground. There's an old maintenance network beneath the city."

"How do you know about it?" Caleb asked Marcus.

"I don't."

"You keep knowing things you claim you don't know."

Marcus said nothing. Valeria confirmed the entrance was ten minutes out, and Caleb told the driver to head underground.

"You're not going," Marcus said.

"Why not?"

"Because it's a trap."

"I know. Which means they're expecting me to stay away. Which means Lora is there."

The vehicle stopped at a rusted steel gate behind an abandoned maintenance building. Caleb told Valeria to assume twenty armed men waiting inside, and told Marcus to stay behind.

"I'm coming," Marcus said.

"You're not a soldier."

"And you're not invincible."

For a moment neither of them moved. Then Marcus said quietly, "Your mother trusted me."

"Did she?" Caleb regretted it the moment it left his mouth, but he didn't take it back. He told Valeria that if they weren't out in twenty minutes, she wasn't to send anyone in after them. She was to call the federal authorities and tell them everything.

He walked through the gate. Marcus caught up and pressed a small handgun into his hand.

"Where did you get this?"

"Your mother," Marcus said, and walked ahead before Caleb could ask anything else.

Caleb turned the weapon over. A single letter was engraved on the side. I. Isabella. He slipped it into his jacket and followed Marcus into the dark.

Water dripped somewhere in the tunnel ahead. Toby directed them left, then stopped them cold two hundred meters in. Footsteps, slow and deliberate, echoed from somewhere in the dark, and a man stepped into the light Caleb recognized instantly, the same face from the photograph outside the Lincoln estate, one of Arthur's business partners.

"Hello, Caleb," the man said.

"Daniel," Marcus said, his voice tight.

"Still loyal to Isabella?" Daniel smiled. "Your mother is closer than you think."

"Where is Lora?" Caleb demanded.

"Still asking the wrong question. This isn't about your ex-wife. It's about your blood." Daniel's eyes glinted. "Your mother left something behind, worth more than twenty billion dollars. The Devereaux Crown."

Marcus went pale. Caleb turned to him. "What is it?"

"Ask your trustee," Daniel said, and when Caleb pressed forward, he produced a small remote with a blinking red light. "Insurance," he said, and pressed the button before Caleb could reach him.

The explosion threw Caleb against the wall. Marcus vanished under falling debris, and for a moment there was only smoke and ringing silence until Caleb heard him calling from beneath a steel beam. He pulled with everything he had until it shifted enough for Marcus to drag his leg free, and they stumbled through the smoke together, Daniel long gone.

"The tunnel's collapsing," Toby said. "Three minutes."

"Find Lora."

"I can't. There's another tunnel, behind you."

Caleb kicked through a steel door into a long corridor, a light at the far end, and beneath it, someone crying.

"Lora!"

"Caleb?" Her voice, small and disbelieving. He ran until he found her on the floor, wrists bound, face bruised, and dropped beside her, cutting the rope.

"You came," she said, crying now.

"Of course I came."

"I thought you hated me."

"I do. But I don't want you dead."

She managed something close to a laugh, then grabbed his arm before he could pull her up. "There's something you need to know. Julian isn't working alone. Your father was here. He told me why I was married to you. I wasn't supposed to be your wife. Julian was. Your father changed the agreement, because he needed you to inherit Apex Capital."

"What does that have to do with you?"

"Everything. Your marriage to me was part of a plan I don't understand. But your father knew your mother was alive. He's known for twenty-five years, because she left something behind." Lora's voice dropped. "The Devereaux Crown. He said it wasn't money."

"Then what was it?"

"Power."

A gunshot cracked through the corridor. Caleb pulled Lora behind him as Marcus raised his weapon and another shot struck the wall near them. Footsteps approached, unhurried, and a figure emerged from the dark in a long black coat, silver hair catching what little light remained.

Lora's eyes went wide. "No. That's impossible."

The light found the woman's face, and Caleb's chest went hollow. He knew that face from the photograph, from fragments of memory he'd never trusted. His mother's face.

"Hello, Caleb," Isabella said.

"Mom?" He couldn't get enough air. Her eyes filled with tears, and for one heartbeat she looked like nothing more than a mother seeing her son after years apart, before fear replaced it entirely.

"Put the gun down."

"Where have you been? Why did you let me believe you were dead?"

"Because I had no choice."

"You always have a choice!"

"I protected you."

"You abandoned me!"

"I saved your life," she said, and the tunnel went quiet around them. "From everyone."

A metallic groan echoed from somewhere behind her, and her expression changed. "We have to leave. Now. Your father found you."

"Good," Caleb said. "I have questions for him."

"You don't understand. Arthur isn't coming to save you. He knows what you inherited."

"The Crown?"

His mother's face went white. "Who told you that name?"

"Mom, what is it?"

She looked at Marcus, who lowered his head, and something in Caleb's stomach dropped. "You know too."

"Yes," Isabella whispered. "It's your birthright. The Crown belongs to you, because you're the last heir of the Devereaux dynasty."

Footsteps echoed through the tunnel then, dozens of them, and the lights died all at once. In the darkness, a voice Caleb hadn't heard in three days called out.

"Caleb. Come home, son."

Caleb raised the gun his mother had given him. Isabella stepped in front of him, her voice shaking in the dark.

"Don't shoot. If Arthur is here..."