Chapter 9 - The Woman With My Face
We searched for Elise Carter through the night.
There were no driver’s licenses.
No tax records.
No death certificate.
Nothing after 2000.
“She erased herself.”
Mara said.
“Or someone erased her.”
Luka replied.
At sunrise, a message appeared on the secure phone.
No sender.
Only coordinates.
And five words.
COME ALONE IF YOU WANT ELENA.
I stared at Luka.
“I’m going.”
“No.”
“Luka.”
“No.”
“My mother may be alive.”
“That message is designed to make you emotional.”
“It worked.”
“You gave birth yesterday.”
“I noticed.”
His jaw tightened.
“I’ll go.”
“They said alone.”
“And kidnappers are famous for respecting agreements.”
Mara intervened.
“We can follow Clara without being seen.”
Luka looked furious.
But he knew she was right.
The coordinates led to an abandoned motel outside the city.
I entered room seventeen alone.
M-17.
Of course.
A woman stood with her back to me.
Long brown hair.
Slim frame.
She turned.
I forgot how to breathe.
She looked like me.
Not similar.
Like an older reflection.
“Elise?”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Clara.”
I stepped backward.
“You’re my aunt?”
“Yes.”
“How do you look thirty?”
Her expression collapsed.
“I don’t.”
She reached behind her ear.
Then removed a thin silicone prosthetic.
Makeup followed.
Beneath it was a woman in her late forties.
The photographs had been staged using makeup, angles, and digital manipulation.
“Why pretend to be me?”
“To make Ethan believe you were sleeping with Luka.”
My fists tightened.
“You helped destroy my marriage.”
“I helped get you away from Ethan.”
“You could have warned me.”
“I tried.”
“When?”
“Your father’s funeral.”
I remembered a stranger in the back row.
A woman wearing black.
“You were there?”
“Yes.”
“Where is my mother?”
Elise’s face changed.
“I don’t know.”
My hope shattered.
“You said—”
“I know where she was taken.”
“When?”
“Seventeen years ago.”
I stared.
“After my father died?”
Elise nodded.
“Daniel’s accident happened because he tried to move Elena again.”
“She was alive?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t she come for me?”
“Because Meridian threatened to kill you.”
My eyes burned.
“Who has her?”
“Victor Hale.”
The door suddenly opened.
Luka entered.
Elise reached for a gun.
He raised his hands.
“Easy.”
“You weren’t supposed to come.”
“I have authority issues.”
Elise lowered the weapon.
Then she saw his tattoo.
Her face changed.
“You’re Matteo’s father.”
Luka went still.
“You knew my son?”
“I knew what they did to him.”
Luka stepped forward.
“Then tell me.”
Elise began crying.
“Matteo wasn’t supposed to die.”
“What does that mean?”
“He was supposed to prove the treatment worked.”
Luka’s voice dropped.
“Who authorized it?”
Elise looked at me.
Then at Luka.
“Samuel Voss.”
The room fell silent.
“But Voss wasn’t acting alone.”
Elise continued.
“He needed someone with access to Daniel’s files.”
“Who?”
Elise swallowed.
“Daniel’s research partner.”
“What was his name?”
She looked directly at me.
“Thomas Cole.”
Ethan’s father.
My father-in-law.
May you like
The man who had died two years before Ethan and I met.
Except according to Elise, Thomas Cole had not died at all.
