CHAPTER 8 — THE BROTHER WHO NEVER DIED
Marcus could not take his eyes off the frozen image.
The grainy security frame showed a man in a long black overcoat standing in the middle of the hallway. His face was only visible for a fraction of a second.
But it was enough.
The same sharp jawline.
The same steel-blue eyes.
The same faint scar beneath his left eyebrow.
Marcus knew that face.
He had spent years staring at it in old family photographs.
He whispered again,
"...Ethan."
Jonathan looked back at the monitor.
"You've never mentioned an Ethan."
Marcus barely heard him.
"He was my brother."
"You said your brother died."
"That's what everyone told me."
Twenty-Eight Years Earlier
Marcus was only five years old.
He remembered rain.
Black umbrellas.
His mother's hand tightly holding his.
A small white coffin.
Richard Thorne standing perfectly still without shedding a single tear.
Someone had whispered,
"Don't let Marcus see inside."
Marcus had asked where Ethan was.
Richard knelt in front of him.
"Your brother is with God now."
Marcus cried for weeks.
Eventually...
Children forget.
Adults tell them to move on.
Marcus had.
Or at least he believed he had.
Jonathan finally broke the silence.
"If that's really him..."
"...someone lied about his death."
Marcus nodded slowly.
"And if someone lied about Ethan..."
"...what else did they lie about?"
Adrian Bennett entered the command room.
Marcus turned the monitor toward him.
Adrian froze.
His face became ghostly pale.
He whispered one word.
"No..."
Marcus stepped closer.
"You recognize him."
Adrian remained silent.
"Answer me."
After several agonizing seconds...
Adrian nodded.
"Yes."
Marcus's patience snapped.
"You knew he was alive?"
"I wasn't sure."
Marcus slammed his fist onto the desk.
"You weren't sure?"
Adrian looked directly into his eyes.
"The body in that coffin..."
"...was never identified."
The room fell silent.
Jonathan stared at Adrian.
"What do you mean?"
Adrian closed his eyes.
"There was a fire."
"The remains were badly burned."
"Richard insisted it was Ethan."
"No DNA testing."
"No independent investigation."
Marcus felt the ground disappear beneath him.
"So there never was proof."
Adrian shook his head.
"Only Richard's word."
Across the hospital...
Khloe and Mary continued down the narrow emergency staircase.
The walls became older.
The paint cracked.
Emergency lights flickered overhead.
No one had cleaned this section of the building in years.
Mary frowned.
"This stairwell should end at the basement."
"It keeps going."
Khloe looked at the signs.
Level 3.
Level 2.
Level 1.
Ground.
B1.
B2.
Then...
Another landing.
No sign.
Just a rusted steel door.
Mary whispered,
"This shouldn't exist."
Before either woman could move...
The crying baby returned.
Louder this time.
Coming from behind the steel door.
Khloe instinctively touched her stomach.
"There really is someone down there."
Mary reached for the handle.
Locked.
Heavy.
Industrial.
She noticed fresh scratches around the lock.
Someone had been using it recently.
Back upstairs...
Jonathan's analysts finally restored one surveillance camera.
The screen showed the attackers abandoning their search for Khloe.
Instead...
They followed the mysterious man in the black coat.
Jonathan enlarged the image.
The man's left hand briefly became visible.
He wore a silver ring engraved with a crest.
Marcus's breathing stopped.
He knew that ring.
Every firstborn son of the Thorne family received one.
Richard wore one.
Marcus had been told Ethan's ring had been buried with him.
Yet there it was.
Still on Ethan's hand.
Jonathan looked toward Marcus.
"Could someone have copied it?"
Marcus slowly shook his head.
"No."
"The ring contains a hidden family seal."
"Only Richard knows how to make them."
Suddenly...
Marcus's encrypted phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
He answered immediately.
A familiar voice spoke.
Calm.
Confident.
Older than Marcus remembered.
"Hello, little brother."
Marcus's heart nearly stopped.
"Ethan?"
A soft laugh echoed through the speaker.
"You've grown up."
Marcus couldn't breathe.
"Where are you?"
"Closer than you think."
"Why fake your death?"
Another pause.
Then Ethan answered,
"I didn't fake it."
"Our father did."
Marcus gripped the phone tighter.
"What are you talking about?"
"You've been living someone else's life."
"So have I."
Marcus looked at Jonathan.
The room had become completely silent.
"Ethan..."
"Come home."
The voice became sad.
"There is no home anymore."
The call disconnected.
Jonathan immediately shouted,
"Trace it!"
His technicians worked furiously.
Thirty seconds later...
One analyst looked up.
"We found the signal."
Marcus stepped forward.
"Where?"
The analyst swallowed.
"Inside the hospital."
Marcus frowned.
"Impossible."
The analyst pointed toward the digital blueprint.
The blinking signal originated...
Not on any public floor.
Not in the parking garage.
Not in administration.
It came from...
Sublevel B-3.
Adrian slowly leaned against the wall.
His hands trembled.
Marcus noticed.
"What aren't you telling me?"
Adrian remained silent.
Marcus raised his voice.
"Tell me!"
Finally...
Adrian whispered,
"B-3 wasn't flooded."
Marcus stared.
"What?"
"It was sealed."
"Why?"
Adrian looked away.
"Because Richard paid millions to erase what happened there."
Khloe and Mary still stood outside the rusted steel door.
Mary suddenly noticed something beneath decades of peeling paint.
A brass plaque.
Almost completely hidden.
She brushed away the dust.
Letters slowly appeared.
THORNE RESEARCH WING
Khloe frowned.
"Research?"
Mary shook her head.
"I've worked here thirty-one years."
"This hospital has never had a Thorne Research Wing."
Khloe looked down.
Then she noticed something else.
Fresh footprints.
Leading beneath the door.
Someone had entered recently.
Without warning...
The steel door unlocked by itself.
A loud metallic click echoed through the stairwell.
Neither woman had touched it.
The door slowly creaked open.
Cold air rushed out.
The lights inside flickered to life one by one.
A long underground corridor stretched into darkness.
Modern.
Clean.
Nothing like the abandoned stairwell behind them.
Khloe whispered,
"Someone's expecting us."
At that exact moment...
Marcus, Jonathan, Adrian, and four armed security agents forced open a forgotten maintenance elevator leading toward B-3.
The elevator descended slowly.
No one spoke.
The digital display changed.
B1.
B2.
Then...
Instead of stopping...
It continued downward.
B3.
B4.
B5.
Jonathan frowned.
"The building plans only show three basement levels."
Marcus looked at the descending numbers.
"So someone changed the plans."
The elevator finally stopped.
The doors opened.
Everyone stepped into a brightly lit underground corridor unlike anything they expected.
It wasn't abandoned.
It wasn't flooded.
It looked brand new.
White marble floors.
Glass walls.
Advanced security doors.
State-of-the-art laboratories.
At the end of the hallway stood a single elderly man wearing an immaculate gray suit.
Richard Thorne.
He smiled as though he had been waiting for them.
He spread his arms.
May you like
"Welcome..."
"...to the place where the Thorne family was truly born."
