Chapter 4 - I Learned My Mother Had Worked for Adrian’s Father, and Her Final Letter Explained Why She Had Forced Me to RunWe found my mother's hidden papers.
She had left them in a safety deposit box.
The first page was dated eleven years before Ethan was born.
Sloan,
If you ever find this, don't trust the Blackwood family.
I stopped.
Then:
They are building something they call Aegis.
It is not meant to protect people.
It is meant to control them.
My mother had discovered Project Aegis.
She wanted to expose it.
Adrian's father stopped her.
She escaped.
She hid me.
Then she met Adrian.
My mother had believed our relationship would happen naturally.
She never knew the project had marked me as a compatible carrier.
She had unknowingly placed me exactly where the organization wanted.
But when she realized Ethan existed, she warned me.
She told me to run.
The voicemail I'd left Adrian came after my mother was already dead.
I had thought she'd been paranoid.
She hadn't.
She had saved me.
Adrian read the letter.
“Your mother tried to protect you.”
“Yes.”
“And me?”
“She thought you might become your father.”
He looked hurt.
“But she didn't know you.”
“No.”
He closed his eyes.
The past became clearer.
My mother hadn't trusted Adrian.
She had trusted the possibility that he could become different.
That was enough.
Then another document appeared.
Aegis required a final activation.
Ethan.
At age seven.
The system had activated because his blood had reached a certain biological stage.
That was why he collapsed.
His body had triggered something dormant.
Adrian stared.
“They've been waiting for his seventh birthday.”
His birthday was three weeks before.
I felt cold.
“Why seven?”
“Because the genetic marker stabilizes.”
“What happens after?”
“We don't know.”
The files were incomplete.
But one phrase appeared repeatedly:
HEIR ACTIVATION WINDOW.
Adrian looked at me.
“We have to keep him out of their hands.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere they can't find him.”
“Where?”
He hesitated.
“My father's private compound.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because that's where they expect us to go.”
Adrian smiled faintly.
“Good.”
“What?”
“You're thinking like me again.”
I frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“We don't go where they'd expect.”
Instead, we moved Ethan to a secret medical facility.
He remained unconscious.
The doctors worked around the clock.
Then Ethan woke.
He looked at me.
“Mom?”
I cried.
“I'm here.”
He smiled.
“Where's Dad?”
Adrian entered.
“I’m here.”
Ethan stared.
“Are you really my dad?”
Adrian sat beside him.
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you come?”
Adrian swallowed.
“Because I didn't know how.”
Ethan thought.
Then held out his hand.
“Come now.”
Adrian took it.
That simple gesture broke something in him.
May you like
He bent his head.
“I will.”
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