Chapter 7 - THE SISTER BEHIND THE GLASS
Julian died before the ambulance arrived.
His final request was not forgiveness.
“Tell Michael I tried too late.”
Dominic promised to find the boy.
The gunfight ended with two attackers dead and one captured. The surviving loyal team secured Eleanor near the trees.
Vincent contacted us through a protected line.
He had reached the river property.
Sophie was not there.
The building contained a staged bedroom, one child’s shoe, and a recording of her crying.
Gabriel had moved her before Vincent arrived.
The two locations were distractions leading toward the same place.
St. Agnes.
Vincent ordered us to wait.
I refused.
“Claire is inside.”
“So is Gabriel.”
“I waited eleven years.”
“Another ten minutes will not kill your sister.”
“You do not know that.”
Silence followed.
He knew better than to promise.
Vincent answered:
“Enter only with Dominic. Do not separate. Do not approach any child until you understand who controls the room.”
“Your daughter may be there.”
“I know.”
His voice changed slightly.
That was the only sign of what the uncertainty was doing to him.
St. Agnes stood behind rusted gates and overgrown trees.
Most windows had been boarded.
A modern security panel glowed beside the service entrance.
Julian’s access card opened it.
Inside, the corridor smelled of antiseptic.
Power ran through the lower floors.
The upper facility appeared abandoned, but someone had built a functioning clinic beneath it.
Dominic guided us past surveillance cameras using old Carlo blind spots.
Every hidden system carried the assumptions of the person who designed it.
Carlo never expected anyone to move through the building without obeying the lights.
Dominic switched them off.
We reached a glass observation room overlooking a nursery.
Six children slept beneath soft blankets.
None appeared injured.
Each bed carried a flower symbol instead of a name.
Rose.
Violet.
Iris.
Lily.
Daisy.
Claire stood between them wearing blue medical clothing.
She looked exactly like the photograph.
Older than the sister I remembered.
Alive.
I pressed both hands against the glass.
“Claire.”
She could not hear me.
Dominic found an intercom control.
Before he activated it, another figure entered the nursery.
Gabriel Kane.
He wore no weapon visibly.
Claire handed him a medical chart.
They spoke with the familiarity of people who had worked together for years.
“She is helping him,” Dominic said.
“No.”
“You cannot know.”
“I know my sister.”
“You knew her at seventeen.”
The truth hurt.
Eleven years can turn survival into almost anything.
Gabriel left the nursery.
Claire approached the child marked Daisy.
She touched the girl’s forehead gently.
The child opened her eyes.
For one moment, Claire’s face changed.
Love.
Then she returned to the chart.
I activated the intercom.
“Claire.”
She froze.
The chart slipped from her hands.
Slowly, she turned toward the observation glass.
Our eyes met.
Her mouth opened.
No sound came.
I placed my injured palm against the window.
She approached until only the glass separated us.
“Brielle?”
The voice entered through the speaker.
I began crying before I could stop myself.
“You are alive.”
Claire looked toward Dominic.
Fear replaced recognition.
“You brought him.”
“He told me the truth.”
“He told you the version that keeps him alive.”
Dominic stepped closer.
“I helped you escape.”
“You moved me from one cage into another.”
“I thought the safe house was empty.”
“It was empty because Nathan Vale reached it first.”
Gabriel’s father had taken Claire after the decoy explosion.
He convinced her Vincent arranged the disappearance because Sophie’s paternity threatened him.
“He showed me documents,” Claire said. “Orders carrying Vincent’s signature.”
“They were forged.”
“I know that now.”
“Then why are you here?”
Her eyes moved toward the sleeping children.
“Because leaving does not free them.”
Claire explained that Nathan Vale created dozens of embryos and identity records from women inside Carlo’s program.
After his death, Gabriel inherited the files and continued monitoring the children.
Some lived with families.
Some remained inside private facilities.
Claire became a physician because Gabriel gave her a choice.
Work inside the program or lose access to Sophie forever.
“You knew where Sophie was?” I asked.
“I watched her through security feeds.”
“Why did you never contact Vincent?”
“Gabriel said he would replace her.”
“With Daisy.”
Claire nodded.
Daisy was not Sophie’s biological twin.
She had been created from a different embryo using the same maternal source.
Me.
Both girls were genetically connected to me.
Claire carried Sophie.
Another woman carried Daisy.
Their resemblance came from deliberate selection.
“Who is their father?” I asked.
Claire looked toward Dominic.
He became still.
“No,” he said.
The genetic reports named Dominic Raines.
Carlo had used biological material collected after Dominic was injured during a security operation.
Dominic stared through the glass at Daisy.
“Sophie too?”
“Both.”
Vincent had raised another man’s biological child.
Dominic had protected a child he never knew was his.
Carlo designed the arrangement to bind his most loyal men to the same secret family without telling either.
“Does Vincent know?” Dominic asked.
“No.”
“He needs to.”
Claire shook her head.
“Gabriel wants him to learn tonight.”
“Why?”
“Because anger is the final test.”
A lock engaged behind us.
Gabriel’s voice entered through the observation room speaker.
“Families are most honest when blood challenges love.”
Steel shutters covered the exits.
The nursery door opened.
Sophie entered wearing the same dress from Belladonna.
She saw Daisy across the room.
Both girls stared at each other.
Sophie whispered:
“She has my face.”
Claire moved between them.
Gabriel continued:
“Vincent is three minutes away.”
A surgical cabinet opened automatically.
Inside were two syringes and one pistol.
May you like
“Only one child leaves St. Agnes as Sophie Moretti.”
Continue to the next part: Gabriel forces Vincent, Dominic, Claire, and Brielle into a test designed to choose which child will inherit Sophie’s identity.
