Chapter 9 - Adrian Chose a Side
Adrian sat beside Walter's hospital bed holding the DNA report like it had personally betrayed him.
Walter did not ask to see it.
That told me he already knew.
“You knew?” Adrian asked.
Walter looked at him.
“Yes.”
One word.
Thirty-two years of family history demolished.
Adrian stood.
“How long?”
“Since before you were born.”
“And you raised me anyway.”
“You were my son.”
“Don't.”
“Adrian—”
“Don't call me that like you're suddenly my father.”
Walter's face tightened.
“I was there when you were born.”
“You also let me spend my entire life trying to become you.”
Walter looked away.
Adrian laughed bitterly.
“All those years you looked at Mason differently.”
“Because Mason needed less.”
“No. Because he was yours.”
The monitor accelerated.
A nurse knocked.
Walter waved her away.
Adrian turned toward the window.
“So my mother had an affair with Thomas.”
Walter nodded.
“During a separation.”
“Did she love him?”
“I don't know.”
“You never asked?”
“I didn't want to know.”
Adrian looked at me.
I saw something new in his face.
Not cruelty.
Not ego.
A man realizing the identity he had built his entire life around was borrowed.
Then he said, “I need to find him.”
The federal agents were already working on it.
Two days later, authorization came through.
Thomas Reed had left witness protection voluntarily seven years earlier.
He was living under his original name in New Mexico.
Retired.
Seventy-one.
We flew to Albuquerque with federal investigators.
Adrian came too.
Our protective order remained in place, so we traveled separately.
I almost didn't go.
But Thomas knew what happened to Dad.
That outweighed everything else.
His house sat on a quiet street beneath a huge empty sky.
When he opened the door, he looked first at me.
Then Adrian.
His face collapsed.
“Oh.”
Adrian said nothing.
Thomas whispered, “You found out.”
“Yes.”
Thomas stepped outside.
“I wondered when this day would come.”
Adrian's hands clenched.
“I'm not here for a reunion.”
“I know.”
“Did you kill Daniel Brooks?”
Thomas looked at me.
“No.”
“Walter said you confessed.”
“I confessed to causing his death.”
“What's the difference?”
“A large one.”
We sat in his backyard.
Thomas refused coffee.
So did I.
He spoke slowly.
“Daniel planned to meet federal investigators on October nineteenth. He had enough evidence to destroy Northline and probably send Walter and Celeste to prison.”
“My father died October eighteenth.”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“Celeste found out.”
Thomas rubbed his hands.
“She came to my office. She said if Daniel testified, Adrian's paternity would become public during discovery.”
Adrian stared.
“She used me.”
“Yes.”
“To stop Daniel.”
“Yes.”
Thomas looked ashamed.
“I begged Daniel to delay.”
“Because you were afraid people would know you were my father?”
“I was afraid Walter would take you away from Celeste, and I was afraid Celeste would destroy Rebecca.”
Adrian laughed.
“So everyone ruined lives to protect me from information.”
No one answered.
Thomas continued.
“Daniel refused to delay. We argued. He left my office furious.”
“What then?”
“I called him that night.”
“About what?”
“To apologize.”
Thomas's eyes moved to me.
“He was driving.”
Everything inside me stopped.
“He answered your call?”
“Yes.”
“We argued again.”
My mouth went dry.
“He crashed.”
Thomas nodded.
“He suffered cardiac trauma after his vehicle left the road.”
I stared.
The official story had been heart attack.
Technically almost true.
“He wasn't murdered.”
“Not intentionally.”
“Then why cover it up?”
Thomas closed his eyes.
“Because the car contained the evidence.”
“And?”
“Celeste reached the crash before police.”
“How?”
“She had been following him.”
Adrian stood.
“Jesus.”
Thomas continued.
“She removed the documents from his car.”
“So Dad was still alive?”
Thomas hesitated.
That hesitation changed everything.
I stood.
“Was my father alive when she got there?”
Thomas's voice became quiet.
“Yes.”
I couldn't breathe.
“What did she do?”
“She called me.”
“What did she do?”
“She waited.”
The world seemed to disappear around his words.
“Waited for what?”
Thomas looked devastated.
“For Daniel to stop breathing.”
Adrian turned away.
I couldn't speak.
No gun.
No attack.
Nothing dramatic.
Just a woman standing in the rain beside a dying man who needed help.
And choosing not to call it.
Thomas said, “I told her to dial 911.”
“Did she?”
“After twenty-three minutes.”
Twenty-three minutes.
Maybe Dad could have survived.
Maybe not.
But she made sure nobody got the chance to find out.
“Why didn't you tell police?”
“Cowardice.”
At least he didn't decorate it.
I walked to the far side of the yard.
My hands shook.
Then Adrian said behind me:
“I'll testify.”
I turned.
He looked at Thomas.
“Everything I know. Every document. Every recording.”
Thomas nodded.
Adrian continued.
“Against my mother.”
That was the moment Adrian Vale finally chose a side.
Not mine.
Not his father's.
May you like
His own.
And it would cost him almost everything.
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