Chapter 6 - The Man Who Came Back From the Dead
The mansion went completely dark.
No emergency lights.
No generator.
Nothing.
Mateo entered Elena's room within seconds.
"Get down."
"Why?"
"Someone disabled the backup power."
Rafael's voice shouted from the hallway.
"Security!"
No response.
Then the speakers inside the mansion crackled.
A man's voice filled the darkness.
"Hello, Isabel."
Elena felt her mother freeze beside her.
Thomas Navarro.
Alive.
Inside the security system.
Celeste whispered:
"Thomas."
The voice laughed.
"Eighteen years and that's all you have for me?"
Rafael shouted:
"Where are you?"
"Home."
A gunshot shattered a downstairs window.
Mateo pulled Elena behind the bed.
Isabel grabbed her hand.
"He's not here for all of us."
Elena knew.
"Me."
"Yes."
The speaker clicked again.
"Elena."
She looked toward the ceiling.
"I've waited a very long time to meet the version of you your mother tried to hide."
Mateo whispered:
"Don't answer."
Elena ignored him.
"You caused my accident."
Thomas laughed.
"No."
Everyone froze.
"I wanted controlled damage. Samuel panicked."
Whitmore.
"You ordered him to hurt me."
"I ordered him to make you symptomatic."
"What's the difference?"
"About sixty miles per hour."
Thomas sounded almost amused.
"Samuel cut the wrong line when he realized you had begun questioning the medical trust."
Elena felt fury rise.
"So Whitmore caused the crash."
"Yes."
"Why didn't you kill him?"
"I may still."
A scream echoed downstairs.
Security guard.
Then footsteps.
Armed men entered.
Mateo moved.
He handed Elena a phone.
No signal.
"Service tunnel?"
Rafael whispered.
"There is one behind the library."
Isabel shook her head.
"Thomas knows."
"How?"
"He grew up here."
Elena looked toward the wheelchair.
An idea formed.
"They think I can't move."
Mateo understood.
"No."
"I can stand."
"For seconds."
"That's seconds more than they know."
"Elena."
She looked at him.
"We use what they believe."
The family moved into the hallway.
Elena sat in her wheelchair.
Weak.
Head lowered.
Mateo stayed behind as if surrendering.
Three armed men appeared.
Then Thomas.
Elena had seen photographs.
None prepared her.
He resembled Adrian.
Older.
Harder.
Silver hair.
Calm eyes.
He looked at Isabel first.
"Still beautiful."
Isabel spat at him.
Thomas smiled.
Then he looked at Elena.
"Hello."
Elena stared.
"Go to hell."
"Definitely Rafael's daughter."
Thomas walked behind her wheelchair.
Touched the handles.
Mateo's entire body tightened.
Thomas noticed.
"The therapist."
Elena said:
"He doesn't matter."
Mateo didn't react.
Good.
Thomas leaned close.
"Everyone matters when they're useful."
He ordered Rafael and Isabel into the library.
Celeste too.
Adrian had been moved to protective custody.
Thomas didn't know where.
His men restrained everyone.
Then Thomas opened a medical case.
Inside were syringes.
Elena's stomach turned.
"Aurora?"
"No."
Thomas held up one syringe.
"This is what has kept you conveniently weak."
Mateo's jaw tightened.
Thomas continued.
"Your injury is incomplete. Samuel knew that from day one."
Elena's eyes burned.
"How much function would I have had without the drugs?"
"Impossible to know."
She hated him more for that answer.
"Why me?"
"Because your mother was the only person Aurora ever restored completely."
Isabel said:
"You killed the others."
"Science has failures."
"You call dead people failures?"
Thomas ignored her.
He looked at Elena.
"Your body may let us solve what went wrong."
"I'm not helping you."
"You already are."
He took Elena's arm.
Mateo moved.
A gun immediately aimed at him.
Elena said:
"Don't."
Thomas smiled.
"Good girl."
Elena stared at him.
Then planted her feet.
Thomas never saw it coming.
She pushed upward.
Her legs screamed.
But she stood.
For two full seconds.
Thomas's face changed.
Shock.
Elena slammed her forehead into his nose.
He stumbled backward.
Mateo attacked the gunman.
Rafael threw himself at another.
Isabel grabbed the syringe case.
Chaos erupted.
A gun fired.
Glass shattered.
Elena fell hard.
Pain exploded through her hip.
Mateo reached her.
"Stay down."
Federal sirens screamed outside.
Rafael had secretly triggered an old mechanical alarm before the power cut.
Thomas ran.
He disappeared into the service corridor.
Agents entered seconds later.
Two gunmen were arrested.
One escaped with Thomas.
Elena lay on the floor shaking.
Mateo checked her legs.
"Can you feel this?"
"Yes."
"Pain?"
"Everywhere."
"Good."
She laughed despite herself.
Thomas was gone.
But his medical case remained.
Inside were records.
Names.
Dates.
Dosage logs.
And a document that changed the investigation.
A legal petition.
Already prepared.
Requesting Elena be declared medically incompetent.
If approved, voting control of Navarro Holdings would transfer according to the family trust.
Rafael read the next page.
His face went white.
"What?"
Elena asked.
"The alternate trustee."
"Who?"
"Thomas."
Elena stared.
"He doesn't just want Aurora."
Rafael nodded slowly.
"He wants the company."
Isabel shook her head.
"No."
Everyone looked at her.
"Not the company."
She pointed toward a subsidiary listed in the trust.
Navarro Biotech.
"The archive."
Rafael froze.
Elena frowned.
"What archive?"
Isabel answered.
"The original Aurora research."
Silence.
"Rafael never destroyed it."
Elena looked at her father.
He didn't deny it.
Thomas wasn't merely trying to steal billions.
He was trying to legally inherit access to a medical technology worth far more.
And the easiest path was simple.
Convince a judge Elena could not control her own life.
Three days later, the court notice arrived.
Her competency hearing was scheduled for the week before her thirty-second birthday.
Thomas had spent months making her look helpless.
Now he intended to use every lie as evidence.
Elena read the notice.
Then looked at Mateo.
"How long until I can walk?"
He didn't sugarcoat it.
"Not long enough."
May you like
She smiled.
"Then we'll have to surprise everyone."
