The Hidden heir’s revenge

CHAPTER 13 THE SON SHE NEVER LOST

Varek stared at the photograph until the edges began to blur.

A woman stood beside a hospital window, holding a newborn baby wrapped in a white blanket. Her face was unfamiliar, but the resemblance between the child and Adrian was impossible to ignore.

The baby’s eyes were closed.

A silver bracelet circled his tiny wrist.

On the back, Eleanor’s handwriting declared that he was the son she had never lost.

Varek looked up.

“Who is this woman?”

Adrian shook his head.

“I’ve never seen her before.”

“Then why do you look like that baby?”

“I don’t know!”

Varek slammed the photograph onto the desk.

“Everybody in this family claims not to know anything. My mother knows nothing. Sebastian knows nothing. You know nothing. Yet somehow, everyone has a secret that leads back to me.”

Adrian lowered the gun.

“I swear I have never seen that photograph.”

“Your face is in it.”

“Then perhaps I wasn’t Adrian when it was taken.”

The words silenced Varek.

He studied Adrian’s face, searching for the arrogance and cruelty he had come to associate with his enemy. Beneath them, he saw something else.

Fear.

Real fear.

Varek picked up the photograph again.

“Room 317.”

Adrian glanced at his phone.

“We’re being summoned.”

“No. Someone is threatening my mother.”

“Sebastian said the woman in the hospital might not be Eleanor.”

“And I’m going to find out whether he’s telling the truth.”

Adrian stepped toward the sealed door.

“What about me?”

Varek pointed at him.

“You’re coming with me.”

“You just heard what the message said.”

“I heard it.”

“It specifically asked you to bring Damian Mercer.”

Varek’s expression hardened.

“Then let’s find out why.”

He turned back to the computer and examined the three identities displayed on the screen.

VAREK VALE.

ADRIAN THORNE.

DAMIAN MERCER.

The third name pulsed in red.

Varek touched it.

A new window appeared, requesting a fingerprint.

He pressed his thumb against the scanner.

The system accepted it.

FIRST IDENTITY CONFIRMED.

Adrian hesitated before placing his thumb on the scanner.

Nothing happened.

SECOND IDENTITY REJECTED.

“Try Damian,” Varek said.

Adrian stared at him.

“You want me to use a name I’ve never used?”

“Your face is in the photograph. The system recognizes you as a missing heir. We have nothing to lose.”

Adrian pressed his thumb against the scanner again.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then the screen flashed green.

DAMIAN MERCER: IDENTITY CONFIRMED.

Both men froze.

Adrian slowly withdrew his hand.

“No.”

Varek stared at the screen.

“You’ve been using a false identity your entire life.”

“No,” Adrian repeated, shaking his head. “Richard told me I was his son. He showed me photographs of my mother. He gave me a birth certificate. He told me everything about my childhood.”

“Maybe he told you what he wanted you to believe.”

Adrian backed away from the desk.

“Then who am I?”

Before Varek could answer, the system produced a final message.

THIRD HEIR CONFIRMED.

A mechanical click sounded behind them.

The vault door unlocked.

Varek glanced at Adrian.

“Whatever we find in that hospital, we’re going to get the truth.”

Adrian nodded, though his face remained pale.

They left the archive together.

Neither noticed the tiny camera above the door following their movements.

On the monitor inside the control room, someone watched them disappear into the corridor.

A gloved hand reached for a telephone.

“They’ve confirmed Damian’s identity,” a man reported.

There was a pause.

Then a familiar voice answered.

“Good.”

“What should we do now?”

“Let them reach the hospital.”

“And the woman?”

The voice became colder.

“Make sure she never wakes up.”

⸻

The hospital corridors were unusually quiet when Varek and Adrian arrived.

It was past midnight. Only a few nurses moved between the wards, and the emergency department doors opened and closed beneath harsh fluorescent lights.

Varek approached the reception desk.

“I’m looking for Eleanor Vale.”

The nurse checked her computer.

“I’m sorry. I can’t provide information about patients without authorization.”

Varek placed a document on the desk.

“I’m her son.”

The nurse examined the paper, then looked at him again.

“Room 317?”

“Yes.”

She hesitated.

“Sir, that room is currently listed as unoccupied.”

Varek’s expression changed.

“What?”

“The patient assigned to that room was transferred earlier tonight.”

“Transferred where?”

“I don’t have that information.”

“Who authorized it?”

The nurse checked the screen again.

“Dr. Marcus Hale.”

Varek had never heard the name.

He pulled out his phone and called Naomi.

She answered after the second ring.

“Varek? It’s almost one in the morning. Please tell me you’ve found something useful.”

“Find a doctor named Marcus Hale. I need his employment history, medical license, addresses, financial records, everything.”

There was a brief silence.

“What happened?”

“Someone moved my mother out of her room.”

Naomi’s voice sharpened.

“Was she discharged?”

“No. The hospital claims she was transferred.”

“To where?”

“They won’t tell me.”

“Send me his full name. I’ll start looking.”

Varek ended the call and turned toward the nurse.

“Show me the transfer authorization.”

“Sir, I can’t—”

“My mother is missing. Somebody used a doctor’s name to move her without informing her family. If that authorization is legitimate, you have nothing to hide.”

The nurse looked toward the security desk.

Then she leaned closer.

“Please don’t tell anyone I showed you this.”

She turned the monitor slightly.

The transfer record appeared on the screen.

Patient: Eleanor Vale.

Destination: Private Recovery Facility.

Authorizing physician: Marcus Hale.

The transfer had been approved three hours earlier.

But there was something wrong with the signature.

Varek had seen it before.

He pulled out the photograph Eleanor had sent him months ago, one of the few documents bearing her signature.

The handwriting on the transfer record was identical.

His mother had supposedly authorized her own transfer.

But Eleanor had been unconscious.

“Who entered this information?” he asked.

“I don’t know. It was already in the system when I started my shift.”

“Can you print it?”

The nurse shook her head nervously.

“No. The system records every document we print.”

Varek took a photograph of the screen.

A message immediately appeared on his phone.

It was from Naomi.

Marcus Hale’s medical license was revoked eight years ago. He died six years ago.

Varek’s stomach tightened.

The doctor who had supposedly transferred his mother was dead.

He showed Adrian the message.

Adrian stared at it.

“Someone used a dead man’s identity.”

“Someone with access to the hospital records.”

“Or someone who controls the hospital.”

Varek looked toward the security desk.

“Where are the cameras covering Room 317?”

The nurse pointed toward the corridor.

“There’s one outside the room, but the cameras in that section have been malfunctioning since yesterday.”

Varek gave a humorless smile.

“Of course they have.”

He hurried toward the ward.

Room 317 stood at the end of the corridor.

The door was open.

Inside, the bed was empty.

A folded blanket lay at the foot of the mattress. The medical monitor had been disconnected, and a clear plastic cup sat on the bedside table.

Varek stepped inside.

Something glimmered beneath the bed.

He crouched and reached for it.

A small silver bracelet.

His fingers tightened around it.

He remembered the photograph of the newborn baby.

The bracelet had been around the child’s wrist.

Varek turned it over.

Three letters had been engraved on the inside.

D.M.

Damian Mercer.

Adrian stood in the doorway.

“Let me see that.”

Varek handed him the bracelet.

Adrian examined it, his breathing growing uneven.

“I’ve seen this before.”

“Where?”

“In Richard’s study. He kept it in a locked drawer. I thought it belonged to a child who died before I was born.”

“Did he ever tell you whose child?”

“No.”

Adrian closed his hand around the bracelet.

“But he used to say that some people were better off dead than discovered.”

Varek’s phone rang.

An unknown number.

He answered immediately.

“Where is my mother?”

A woman’s voice came through the speaker.

“Varek?”

He stopped breathing.

“Mother?”

“Listen to me carefully. You must leave that hospital.”

Varek gripped the phone.

“Where are you?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Are you safe?”

There was a pause.

“No.”

His heart lurched.

“Who has you?”

“I don’t know. They moved me twice. I heard them talking about you.”

“Tell me where you are. I’ll come for you.”

“No!” Eleanor whispered. “You mustn’t come here.”

“I’m not leaving you again.”

“Varek, please. You need to understand something about the three boys.”

He glanced at Adrian.

“What?”

“Only one of you was supposed to inherit the Thorne fortune. The other two were supposed to disappear.”

“Who decided that?”

“Your grandfather.”

Varek went still.

“My grandfather?”

“He knew what Richard and Cassian were planning. He knew about the identity changes, and he knew one of the children would be used to destroy the others.”

“Which child?”

“I don’t know. I was never told the whole plan.”

“Mother, who is Damian Mercer?”

Eleanor began to cry.

“Oh, Varek.”

“Tell me!”

“The baby in that photograph wasn’t the child they told me had died.”

Varek looked at Adrian.

The other man’s face had gone completely white.

“Then whose baby was it?” Varek demanded.

Before Eleanor could answer, a man’s voice sounded in the background.

“Time’s up.”

“Mother?”

A sharp noise came through the phone.

Eleanor gasped.

Then the line went dead.

“Mother!”

Varek called back.

The number was no longer available.

He stood frozen, staring at his phone.

Adrian stepped closer.

“Varek, we need to get out of here.”

“I’m not leaving without her.”

“We don’t even know where she is.”

“Then we’ll find out.”

A security alarm suddenly sounded.

Red lights flashed along the corridor.

The nurse from reception hurried toward them.

“Security is coming! You need to leave!”

Varek turned.

“Why?”

“Someone reported that you accessed a restricted patient room.”

He stared at her.

“Who reported it?”

“I don’t know!”

Footsteps thundered through the corridor.

Adrian grabbed Varek’s arm.

“Move!”

They ran through a side exit into the hospital parking area.

Varek’s car stood where he had left it.

But a black envelope had been tucked beneath the windshield wiper.

He snatched it up and tore it open.

Inside was a single sheet of paper and a photograph.

The photograph showed Richard Thorne standing beside a hospital bed.

A woman lay beneath the covers.

Eleanor.

Beside Richard stood Sebastian Blackstone.

Both men were smiling.

Varek’s fingers trembled.

He turned to the paper.

YOUR MOTHER IS ALIVE BECAUSE WE ALLOW IT.

Beneath the message was an address.

An abandoned private clinic outside the city.

At the bottom, another sentence had been written.

BRING DAMIAN MERCER, OR WE WILL BURY THE WOMAN WHO GAVE BIRTH TO HIM.

Varek looked at Adrian.

For a moment, neither spoke.

Then Adrian whispered, “They think I’m Damian.”

Varek folded the paper.

“No.”

He looked at the photograph again.

“Someone wants us to believe you’re Damian.”

His phone vibrated.

A new message had arrived from Naomi.

VAREK, I FOUND THE ORIGINAL BIRTH RECORD. YOU NEED TO SEE THIS BEFORE YOU TRUST ADRIAN.

An image appeared beneath the message.

It was a scanned hospital document dated twenty-nine years earlier.

Three babies were listed.

The first was recorded as Varek Vale.

The second was recorded as Damian Mercer.

The third child’s name had been crossed out.

But the handwritten note beside the third entry was still readable.

MOTHER: ELEANOR VALE.

FATHER: SEBASTIAN BLACKSTONE.

Varek slowly lifted his eyes.

Across from him, Adrian was staring at the same document on his own phone.

His lips parted.

“That’s impossible.”

Varek could barely hear him.

Because beneath the third child’s entry was one final line.

STATUS: ALIVE.

And the name written beside it was not Adrian Thorne.

It was VAREK BLACKSTONE.