Chapter 10
The hidden sender was not Elias Grant.
It was Bernadette.
At least, that was what the device logs showed.
Her secondary phone had sent the message.
She stared at it in disbelief.
“I didn't.”
Damian did not look at her.
That was the mistake.
Adriano saw it.
“Open the phone.”
The device contained draft messages.
Logistics instructions.
Theo’s route.
The loading-bay timing.
References to the Psalter.
Everything pointed toward Bernadette as the operational planner.
Her breathing became shallow.
“I've never seen half of these.”
Damian finally spoke.
“Mom…”
She turned toward him slowly.
His face gave her the answer before his mouth did.
The digital-forensics specialist compared timestamps.
The phone had been configured remotely.
Several messages were created from Damian’s laptop.
The voice recorder prompts now made sense too.
Damian had spent weeks building evidence around his own mother.
Her voice.
Her credentials.
Her bag.
Her secondary phone.
Her signatures.
If Theo disappeared and the plan collapsed, Bernadette would look like the mastermind.
Damian could claim he had been following his mother’s instructions.
Bernadette’s face went completely still.
“You were going to give them me.”
Damian's eyes hardened.
“Only if something went wrong.”
Nobody moved.
Even Adriano needed a second.
That was the major twist.
Bernadette had participated willingly in silencing Ava and hiding Theo temporarily.
She was guilty.
But Damian had designed a deeper betrayal beneath hers.
He planned to sacrifice his own mother if the operation failed.
And Theo had never been scheduled for a nearby townhouse.
Enzo recovered the real transport instruction from Damian’s laptop.
Destination:
Providence private airfield.
Passenger name:
THOMAS BELL.
Age:
Bernadette grabbed the back of a chair.
“You said he was coming back at midnight.”
Damian’s voice dropped.
“I needed more time.”
“How much?”
He did not answer.
Adriano did.
“Long enough for the council vote.”
Damian looked at him.
Adriano finally understood the entire structure.
Theo would vanish.
Adriano would leave Boston and pursue Harrison.
Damian would trigger emergency authority.
Grant would receive the library contracts and help finance Damian’s breakaway network.
If Adriano retaliated violently against Harrison, Damian would present it as proof that grief had made him unstable.
If investigators found the plot, Bernadette’s recorded voice and phone would carry the blame.
Every path protected Damian.
Every person around him was disposable.
Including his mother.
Including Theo.
Bernadette’s lips trembled.
“What were you going to do with him after the vote?”
Damian looked at her.
Silence.
Her face collapsed.
Adriano’s voice became almost inaudible.
“Answer her.”
Damian swallowed.
“He would've come home.”
“When?”
May you like
“I don't know.”
That answer finally broke Bernadette.
