Chapter 16
Declan opened it.
Inside was a single photograph.
Two babies.
Newborns.
Wrapped in blue blankets.
On the back, written in faded ink:
Declan and Alexander — May 14, 1988.
Declan sat down.
I stared.
He whispered:
“Alexander?”
His phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
“Hello?”
Silence.
Then a man’s voice.
“Hello, brother.”
Declan stopped breathing.
“Who is this?”
The man laughed.
A low, controlled laugh.
And every hair on my arms rose.
Because there was something familiar about it.
Then the man said:
“You should ask Cassidy why she already knows me.”
Declan slowly looked at me.
I shook my head.
“I don’t.”
The call ended.
Then my phone buzzed.
A photograph arrived.
I opened it.
My blood turned cold.
It was taken outside my daughters’ preschool.
That morning.
Sophie.
Lila.
Harper.
And beneath the image:
YOU TOOK MY INHERITANCE.
I’LL TAKE HIS.
Police protection appeared immediately.
So did federal agents.
The girls stopped attending preschool.
My house became impossible to secure, so Declan moved us temporarily to a property outside the city guarded by former federal security officers.
I hated it.
The girls thought it was an adventure.
“Are bad guys looking for us?”
Sophie asked.
I nearly dropped my coffee.
Declan crouched.
“No one is going to hurt you.”
“How do you know?”
“Because a lot of very good people are making sure you’re safe.”
Sophie nodded.
Then whispered loudly:
“Mommy says never promise things you can’t control.”
Declan looked at me.
“Of course she does.”
The mysterious caller identified himself two days later.
Alexander Hawthorne.
Declan’s twin brother.
According to records uncovered by investigators, Eleanor had given birth to identical twin boys.
But Charles Hawthorne believed twins created succession problems.
He wanted one heir.
One clear future leader.
So Alexander was quietly placed with another family through an illegal private adoption arranged by Charles’s attorney.
Eleanor had been told the baby died shortly after birth.
Years later, she learned the truth.
Alexander had grown up under the name Alex Warren.
At seventeen, Charles found him.
At nineteen, Alexander was secretly brought into the family’s financial operations.
Not as a son.
As insurance.
If Declan failed, rebelled, or exposed the family, Charles intended to replace him with Alexander.
Same face.
Same DNA.
Same blood.
Different identity.
It sounded insane.
Until the records proved it.
Declan sat across from me after learning everything.
“So my entire life was an audition.”