My New Wife Tried to Silence My Daughter

I nearly drove back to Blackthorn House.

Claire stopped me by stepping in front of the clinic door.

"That's what Aaron wants."

"My father is there."

"Maybe."

"You said he was alive."

"I said I saw him. I didn't say I knew what game he's playing now."

Vanessa pulled the blinds.

"Aaron has been inside the Foundation system since college."

I turned.

"You have proof?"

"I have patterns."

"That is not proof."

"It's more than you had when you married me."

There was bitterness in that sentence.

I ignored it.

Aaron called again.

I put him on speaker.

"Where are you?" I asked.

"Not safe to say."

"Try."

"Daniel, Dad is alive. That part is true. He has been moving between properties for more than a year. He came back because Claire woke up."

Claire's face went still.

"How do you know she woke up?"

Silence.

I answered for him.

"Because you were monitoring the room."

"Because I was monitoring Dad."

"Same camera?"

"Yes."

"So you watched my wife behind that wall."

"I watched to keep him from moving her."

Claire stood.

"You could have opened the door."

Aaron's voice changed.

"Claire, if I opened that door before I had the archive, Dad would have moved Lily."

I felt every muscle in my body lock.

"What did you say?"

"He has a file on her."

Lily slept ten feet away.

Vanessa whispered, "No."

Aaron continued.

"I found it three months ago. Subject Eight was never assigned. He left it open. Observation only."

I looked at Lily.

"My six-year-old daughter is in a containment file?"

"Not yet."

"Not yet?"

"Daniel, he doesn't see children as children. He sees leverage. If Claire talked, Lily became leverage. If Vanessa betrayed him, Lily became leverage. If you refused to cooperate, Lily became leverage."

The room went cold.

"Cooperate with what?"

Aaron exhaled.

"The sale."

I stared at the phone.

Hayes Development had spent nine months negotiating a merger with Calder Global, a private infrastructure fund. The deal would make our family company nearly impossible to audit because Calder planned to roll dozens of subsidiaries into one holding structure.

I had championed it.

Aaron had questioned it.

My father, before his "death," had insisted it was the future.

"The merger hides the Foundation assets," I said.

"Yes."

"And you knew."

"For six weeks."

I almost threw the phone.

"You let me keep signing papers."

"I was trying to find the master archive first."

Claire walked closer to the speaker.

"Aaron, where is it?"