CHAPTER 6 THE SON CAMDEN NEVER MENTIONED
The fire spread through the stairwell within seconds.
Walter fired at the locked door, but the heat forced us back.
“There must be another exit,” Lena shouted.
Reagan pointed toward the portrait wall.
“Camden designed an emergency passage.”
I pulled the portrait away while Lena continued copying the archive. The countdown reached forty seconds.
Behind the wall was a steel wheel.
It would not turn.
Carter still held the gun, but his face had lost its arrogance.
“We’re going to die.”
“Help me,” I said.
He hesitated.
I grabbed his jacket.
“You wanted to be recognized as Camden’s son? Then act like someone he wouldn’t be ashamed of.”
Something shifted in his eyes.
Carter shoved the gun into his waistband and gripped the wheel beside me.
Together, we forced it open.
A narrow tunnel appeared.
“Copy complete!” Lena shouted.
The screen went black.
We entered the tunnel as flames consumed the hidden office.
Walter went first, followed by Lena and Reagan. Carter entered behind me.
The passage ended beneath an abandoned greenhouse at the rear of the neighboring property.
We emerged coughing into the night.
Fire climbed through the roof of my childhood home.
Sirens approached.
Victor’s men had vanished.
Carter stood beside me, staring at the flames.
“My mother’s things are in there,” I said.
Reagan answered softly.
“I moved most of them months ago.”
“Where?”
“A safe apartment.”
I turned to her.
“You knew this could happen.”
“I knew Victor would destroy the house if he believed Hawthorne was inside.”
Carter suddenly reached for Lena’s flash drive.
I caught his wrist.
He swung at me.
We fell against the greenhouse wall, shattering glass.
“Stop!” Reagan screamed.
I pinned Carter to the ground.
“You already stole three years from me.”
“You stole my whole life!”
“I didn’t know you existed.”
“That’s the point!”
His face twisted with years of bitterness.
“Camden visited us before he married Mom. He paid for my schools. He gave us gifts. But in public, I was nothing. Then he brought us into your house and told everyone Mom was a widow he had fallen in love with.”
“You knew he was your father?”
“Not until I was twenty-four. Victor showed me the records.”
“Victor showed you exactly what he needed you to see.”
Carter stopped struggling.
“What does that mean?”
Lena inserted the drive into a laptop she had taken from the hidden office.
“I copied Camden’s private correspondence.”
She opened a file marked CARTER DENNIS TRUST.
A legal agreement appeared.
Camden had established a trust for Carter when he was born. The account contained millions of dollars.
But the funds had been frozen after Victor presented evidence that Carter was laundering money through the company.
Carter stared at the screen.
“He tried to disinherit me.”
“No,” Lena said. “He froze the trust to keep Victor from taking it through your gambling debts.”
She opened another letter.
It was addressed to Carter.
I failed you by hiding the truth of your birth. I believed secrecy would protect Finnley, you, and both your mothers from the consequences of my mistakes. Instead, secrecy gave Victor the weapon he needed to divide my sons.
Carter’s face went blank.
Reagan began to cry.
“My mother knew?” I asked.
Reagan nodded.
“Lillian discovered Camden had fathered Carter before she and Camden married. She was hurt, but she did not blame a child. She insisted Camden provide for him.”
“Then why was it hidden?”
“Because Carter’s biological mother was married to Victor’s older brother.”
I looked at Carter.
Reagan continued.
“Victor believed Carter belonged to his family. When Camden admitted the truth privately, Victor threatened to destroy both households. Lillian convinced everyone to remain silent.”
Carter stepped away from us.
“So Victor knew all along.”
“He knew,” Reagan said. “And he used your anger.”
The fire department arrived at the house.
Police cars followed.
Detective Briggs stepped from the first vehicle.
“We have to leave,” Walter said.
We escaped through the neighboring woods and drove to Reagan’s safe apartment across town.
It was a small place above a closed bakery. Inside were boxes containing my father’s clothes, my mother’s portrait, and family photographs Reagan had removed from the house.
She had not destroyed our history.
She had hidden it.
Carter sat alone at the kitchen table.
I wanted to hate him without complication.
He had forged my signature.
He had manipulated evidence.
He had allowed me to be convicted.
Yet Victor had fed his resentment for years and turned him into a weapon.
That did not make Carter innocent.
It made the truth uglier.
Lena analyzed the Hawthorne files until sunrise.
“The archive contains enough evidence to expose Victor’s network,” she said. “But several critical files are encrypted separately.”
“What do we need?” I asked.
“A biometric authorization from Camden.”
“He has to be alive and conscious,” Walter said.
Reagan placed Victor’s phone on the table.
“He will contact us.”
As if summoned by her words, the phone rang.
Victor’s name appeared.
I answered.
“Let me speak to my father.”
“You have something I want,” Victor said.
“You have someone I want.”
“A trade, then.”
“Where?”
“The old Dennis Industrial refinery. Midnight.”
“That place has been abandoned for years.”
“Your mother visited it the night she died.”
My grip tightened around the phone.
“What does that have to do with her crash?”
“Everything.”
Victor paused.
“Bring the archive. Bring Carter. Camden has one final confession to make to both his sons.”
The call ended.
Carter looked at me.
“He asked you to bring me?”
“Yes.”
“Then he doesn’t plan to let either of us leave.”
Reagan touched her son’s shoulder.
“For once in your life, do not do what Victor expects.”
Carter looked from her to me.
“What do you suggest?”
I thought about the refinery, the flash drive and my father waiting in captivity.
Then I looked at the brother who had stolen three years from me.
“We make Victor believe we still hate each other.”
May you like
Carter gave a humorless smile.
“That should not be difficult.”
