Chapter 10 - Jacob MercerRosa did not shoot her sister again.
She kicked the handgun away and forced Elena against the tunnel wall.
“How did Claire’s baby survive?” Nathan demanded.
Elena’s smile disappeared.
“Emergency surgery at a Mercer clinic.”
“Who removed him?”
“Elias.”
“Where is Jacob now?”
“Safe.”
“That word means nothing coming from you.”
Elena said Jacob had been raised inside a private Continuity household under the name Jacob Reed. His assigned guardian believed he was the son of a deceased federal witness.
He was four years old.
Nathan tried to calculate the years.
Claire died four winters earlier.
The age matched.
“Does Elias have him?”
“Not physically.”
“Who does?”
Elena looked toward Rosa.
Rosa shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
A photograph in the heir list showed Jacob standing beside a lake. A woman’s hand rested on his shoulder, but the face had been cropped out.
Nathan recognized the ring.
Sarah wore it on her right hand.
He turned toward the safe-room radio.
“Sarah knew.”
Rosa contacted her.
Sarah answered after a delay.
Nathan held up the photograph to the tunnel camera.
“Who is Jacob?”
Sarah closed her eyes.
“Nathan—”
“Who is he?”
“Claire’s son.”
“You knew.”
“Dad brought him to me once.”
“When?”
“Last summer.”
The same period Lily remembered visiting Elias.
Sarah went to the greenhouse after receiving a message claiming Elias had information about Claire’s death. Elena transported Lily without Sarah’s knowledge, creating overlapping meetings.
Elias showed Sarah the boy and threatened to move him permanently if she exposed Continuity.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I had no proof he was yours.”
“You had a photograph.”
“I had three children Marcus was already controlling. I thought I could find Jacob before telling you.”
Nathan laughed bitterly.
“Everyone decides I can survive one more lie.”
Sarah began crying.
“I was afraid you’d go after Dad alone.”
“You were right.”
He ended the call.
Elena activated her satellite transmitter.
The device connected weakly through the storm.
Nathan could send Sarah’s affidavit and Claire’s recording, but the signal allowed only one transmission before the battery failed.
The heir list could not be included.
Elena wanted it first.
Rosa wanted Nathan to preserve it.
Nathan chose the affidavit and recording.
The documents left the mountain in a burst of compressed data.
Marcus’s trust authority entered emergency suspension seventeen seconds later.
The county custody order was flagged for fraud review.
Judge Voss’s signature was frozen pending investigation.
Marcus’s voice roared through the tunnel speaker.
“What did you send?”
Nathan said nothing.
Back at the house, security monitors displayed banking alerts across Marcus’s phone.
His access to the Mercer accounts disappeared.
Elias watched from the greenhouse.
For the first time, he looked surprised.
Elena studied her device.
“The federal system acknowledged the files.”
“Then help me find Jacob.”
“I can give you his last location.”
Before she could speak, the tunnel shook.
Marcus had found the outer shaft and placed an explosive charge against it.
Rock fractured above them.
Rosa pulled Nathan behind a support beam.
Elena disappeared into the dust.
When the air cleared, the tunnel had split.
Nathan and Rosa remained on one side.
Elena was gone.
So was the heir list.
The safe-room radio came alive.
Sarah screamed.
Marcus had breached the inner pantry.
Nathan watched through the remaining monitor as he entered the safe room wearing a respirator.
Evelyn followed.
Sarah stood between them and the children.
Marcus held up his phone.
“You froze my accounts.”
Nathan reached the nearest emergency control.
The safe room contained one final defense: a manual door lock that could seal everyone inside until authorities arrived.
Activating it would trap Sarah and the children with Marcus.
Leaving it open could let him remove them.
Then a small figure appeared behind Marcus.
Lily held the black tracker Rosa had removed from the blanket.
She pressed its emergency button.
Every vehicle outside responded at once.
The ambulance doors opened.
Inside were not medical supplies.
May you like
There were three more children.
👉 Lily’s tracker exposed Marcus’s ambulance as a transport vehicle carrying children whose identities Continuity had erased.
