THE MAN WHO WAS NEVER GABRIEL

Evelyn’s scream tore through the library, sharp and ragged.

She didn’t back away from the man sitting in the leather chair.

She lunged toward him.

Her trembling hands grabbed the lapels of his dark suit.

“What did you do with him?” she sobbed. “Where is my son?”

The man we all knew as Gabriel Moretti looked utterly lost.

He didn't push her away.

Instead, he gently held her wrists.

“Mama, it’s me. It’s Gabriel.”

The voice on my phone spoke again.

“He believes he is, Rachel. But look at his left hand. The webbing between his thumb and index finger.”

I didn't want to look.

But I did.

There was a faint, silvery scar.

Shaped like a crescent moon.

“How do you know about that scar?” I asked into the phone.

“Because I caused it,” Catherine whispered. “When we were seven. I pushed him into a glass table.”

The room spun.

“If he isn’t Gabriel,” I said slowly, “then who is he?”

“His name is Julian. My twin brother. Evelyn gave us away to protect Gabriel’s inheritance. But Dr. Pierce brought Julian back after the shooting twenty years ago. When the real Gabriel died on that operating table.”

I dropped the phone.

Daniel was staring at his father.

Or rather, the man who had raised him for twenty-six years.

“Dad?” Daniel’s voice cracked.

The man in the chair looked at his hands.

The slight tremor was worse now.

“I remember my childhood,” he said, his voice thick with panic. “I remember marrying your mother. I remember Sofia’s birth.”

He pulled a heavy gold pocket watch from his vest.

A family heirloom.

“My father gave me this when I turned eighteen,” he said, his fingers tracing the engraved 'G' on the cover.

I picked up the phone.

“He remembers everything, Catherine.”

“Pierce didn't just give him Gabriel's face, Rachel. He gave him Gabriel’s blood. The plasma protocol. It transfers cellular memory. It’s highly experimental, and it’s failing. Julian’s brain is rejecting the memories. That’s why he’s collapsing.”

Answer one. Open two.

If this man was Julian, then where was the real Gabriel’s body?

And more importantly...

I looked at Daniel, whose eyes were wide with terror.

“If the real Gabriel died twenty years ago,” I asked Catherine, my heart hammering against my ribs, “then who is Daniel’s father?”

Catherine’s laugh was cold.

“Ask Evelyn. She arranged the marriage.”

I turned to the seventy-six-year-old woman crying on the floor.

Before I could speak, the library doors flew open.

Thomas, the head of security, stood there.

He wasn’t holding a phone.

He was holding a gun.