Chapter 14
Chapter 14: The Mother of All Lies
Daniel drove back toward the Maine woods like a man possessed, the truck's tires screaming against the black ice as the speedometer hit 100 mph. His mind was a chaotic, raging storm of betrayal and fury. Who was Clara? Was she a helpless victim of a monstrous corporate experiment? A willing co-conspirator who had targeted him from day one? Or a highly engineered biological weapon designed to dismantle the Mendoza family from the inside out?
When he finally arrived back at the cabin, he didn't knock. He kicked the heavy oak door open with a resounding thud, his gun raised and scanning the living room. The fire had died down to a pile of gray, smoldering ash. The room was freezing, and completely empty.
"Clara!" he yelled, a sudden, blinding panic seizing his chest. "Clara! Where are you?!"
"Down here, Daniel. Don't make a scene."
The voice came from the basement stairs. Daniel walked down the wooden steps one by one, every creak echoing like a gunshot in the silent house. The basement was dimly lit by a single, bare overhead bulb dangling from a wire.
Clara was sitting calmly on a wooden chair in the center of the concrete floor. She wasn't tied up. She wasn't crying. In her right hand, she held a secure satellite phone; in her left, a sleek, pre-loaded medical syringe. Alejandro was resting quietly in his portable car seat on the floor right beside her feet, completely oblivious to the cold.
And standing directly behind her, casting a long shadow across the room, was Mariela Mendoza.
"Welcome home, son," Mariela said smoothly, a cruel, triumphant smile stretching across her heavily made-up face. She looked perfectly manicured, even in a damp basement.
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Daniel instantly aimed his Glock directly at his mother’s chest. "Get away from her. Get away from my son right now, or I swear to God I will put a bullet through your head."
"Your son?" Mariela laughed, a loud, mocking sound that echoed off the concrete walls. "Oh, Daniel. You always were the romantic fool of the family. Tell him the truth, Clara. Tell him whose blood really runs through that precious baby's veins. Tell him about the legal contract you signed with me in Geneva before you ever 'accidentally' spilled coffee on him at that cafe in New York."
