Chapter 7 - the brother with Ethan’s face
Miles removed his wet hood.
Under the harsh laboratory lights, Ethan finally saw what distance and darkness had hidden for years.
The shape of Miles’s jaw.
The gray eyes.
The faint scar above his right eyebrow, mirroring the one Ethan had above his left.
They were not identical now, but the resemblance was undeniable.
“You were the second boy,” Ethan said.
Miles smiled.
“My name was Elias. Yours was Matthew.”
Laura stepped in front of Sophie.
“The recording called the surviving child Elias.”
“Charles changed the labels repeatedly,” Miles replied. “He wanted to see which boy would accept whichever identity he assigned.”
Ethan remembered childhood examinations where doctors asked him to repeat his name, his birthday, and details about a family he barely remembered.
He had believed the tests were connected to the trauma of an early illness.
They were conditioning.
“Which one of us became Ethan Cole?” Ethan asked.
“You did.”
“And you?”
“I was declared dead.”
Miles walked farther into the room.
“Charles kept me in the program. He taught me to observe you, imitate you, and replace you if you failed.”
Nora looked horrified.
“You were children.”
“We were inventory.”
For the first time, bitterness overshadowed Miles’s control.
Ethan lowered his pistol slightly.
“Why did Charles choose me?”
“You cried less.”
The answer was so simple that it hurt.
“He gave you the mansion, the company, and his name. He gave me a number.”
“You could have told me.”
“When? While you accepted awards for helping abandoned children?”
“I did not know.”
“You benefited from not knowing.”
Laura spoke quietly.
“Charles made both of you victims. That does not excuse what you did to Sophie.”
Miles’s attention moved to the girl.
“Sophie was never supposed to be harmed.”
“She has a bruise on her head.”
“Wade lost his temper.”
Wade’s expression changed.
Miles shot him without warning.
The gunshot echoed through the laboratory.
Wade collapsed.
Sophie screamed.
Miles watched the body fall.
“I do not tolerate disobedience.”
Ethan raised his pistol again.
“You just proved Laura’s point.”
“No. I removed the person who hurt her.”
“You kidnapped her mother.”
“To recover the archive.”
“You staged another child’s death under Sophie’s name.”
Miles’s face hardened.
“That was not my decision.”
“Whose was it?”
A woman’s voice answered through the projector.
“Mine.”
The image of Charles vanished.
A live video replaced it.
A blonde woman sat inside Ethan’s mansion, wearing red shoes.
Ethan recognized her.
Victoria Cole.
His father’s widow.
The woman Ethan had called his mother since childhood.
She was alive, elegant, and perfectly calm while armed men moved through the glass foyer behind her.
“Hello, Ethan,” she said.
Ethan could barely speak.
“You knew.”
“I chose you.”
“You allowed Miles to be declared dead.”
“I preserved both assets.”
Miles’s expression tightened at the word.
Victoria continued.
“Charles believed one boy should inherit. I believed competition created strength.”
Laura stared at the screen.
“You built the identity network.”
“I refined it.”
“Children died.”
“Unstable systems always produce loss.”
Sophie hid behind her mother.
Ethan looked at Miles.
“She used you.”
“She gave me purpose.”
“She gave you my discarded jobs and told you it was power.”
Miles aimed his weapon at Ethan.
“You lived my life.”
“No. I lived the life she assigned me.”
For a moment, something uncertain appeared in Miles’s face.
Victoria noticed.
“Miles, retrieve Sophie and destroy the laboratory.”
“Why Sophie?” Ethan asked.
Victoria smiled faintly.
“Because Laura misunderstood the child’s importance. Sophie did not merely witness the substitution process.”
Sophie tightened her hold on the rabbit.
“She is compatible,” Victoria said.
“With what?”
“With you.”
Laura moved backward.
“No.”
Victoria continued.
“Sophie’s father was another survivor of the original program.”
Laura closed her eyes.
Ethan looked at her.
“You knew?”
“I knew her father had grown up in state care. I did not know about Point Delmar.”
“What was his name?”
“Daniel Reed.”
Ethan felt the floor shift beneath him.
“Reed.”
Laura nodded.
“Daniel died before Sophie was born.”
Victoria laughed softly.
“Daniel did not die.”
Sophie looked up.
“My daddy is alive?”
Laura’s face collapsed.
Victoria answered.
“He has been alive inside Black Harbor Estate for seven years.”
Ethan remembered the sealed lower tunnels, the unexplained maintenance charges, and rooms even he could not access.
“Where?”
“Beneath the doghouse.”
The supposedly empty structure had not merely hidden an escape route.
It had concealed the entrance to a prison.
Victoria leaned toward the camera.
May you like
“Bring Sophie home, Miles. Her father is becoming impatient.”
👉 Sophie’s supposedly dead father was imprisoned beneath Ethan’s estate, and Victoria intended to reunite them for a purpose no one yet understood.
