Chapter Nine Keeper Who Would Not Let Go
Chapter Nine
Keeper Who Would Not Let Go
The second gunshot never reached Elias.
Adrian hit Mercer from the side half a heartbeat before he pulled the trigger.
The weapon fired into the stone wall.
The explosion of sound ricocheted through the bell chamber as Mercer and Adrian crashed to the floor.
“Adrian!”
Naomi started toward them.
Lucas caught her around the waist.
“Wait.”
Across the chamber, Commander Ross drew her weapon and moved with terrifying precision.
“Drop it, Mercer!”
Daniel rolled beneath Adrian, slammed an elbow into his ribs, and tried to raise the gun again.
Adrian grabbed his wrist.
The two men struggled.
“You raised me!” Adrian shouted.
Mercer’s face twisted.
“That is why you should understand!”
“I understand exactly what you are!”
Ross closed the distance.
“Daniel!”
Mercer looked toward her.
That instant cost him.
Adrian twisted his wrist.
The gun fell.
Ross kicked it away.
Mercer froze with Ross’s weapon aimed directly between his eyes.
“Move again,” she said, “and our philosophical disagreement becomes extremely short.”
Naomi might have appreciated the line under different circumstances.
She couldn’t now.
Serrano collapsed.
Amara screamed his old name.
“Gabriel!”
Everything changed.
Naomi turned.
Mateo Serrano—the man who had terrorized families, built a criminal empire, kidnapped Evelyn and Emily, hunted Naomi across Europe, and spent decades chasing power—was lying on the stone floor with blood spreading beneath his hand.
And Naomi ran toward him.
She hated herself for the instinct even as she obeyed it.
“Naomi!” Lucas followed.
She dropped beside Serrano.
His breathing was shallow.
The bullet had entered high in his chest, near his shoulder, but there was too much blood for Naomi to convince herself it was harmless.
Serrano looked up at her.
Surprise crossed his face.
“You came to me.”
Naomi immediately hardened.
“Don’t make this into something it isn’t.”
His mouth curved faintly despite his pain.
“There you are.”
“Stop talking.”
“You sound like Amara.”
“I said stop talking.”
Amara dropped to her knees on Serrano’s other side.
Her hands trembled before she pressed them against the wound.
For a second, they looked at each other.
Not Mateo Serrano and the woman who escaped him.
Not even Gabriel and the woman he once loved.
Two people staring across the graveyard of everything they had ruined between them.
“Why?” Amara whispered.
He looked confused.
“Why did you come here?”
“You know why.”
“No. I know what you told yourself.”
She pressed harder against the wound.
“You could have disappeared.”
“I spent thirty years disappearing.”
“That was your choice.”
His eyes flashed.
“No. My choices began after everyone else had made theirs for me.”
Naomi stared down at him.
“Welcome to the family.”
Serrano looked at her.
Then, unbelievably, he laughed.
It became a cough.
Blood touched the corner of his mouth.
Naomi’s stomach dropped.
“Lucas.”
He was already kneeling beside her.
Lucas removed his jacket and tore the clean inner lining free.
“We need pressure here.”
Serrano’s eyes moved toward him.
“You’re helping me.”
Lucas did not look up.
“I’m helping Naomi.”
Something about that answer satisfied Serrano.
“Good.”
Lucas pressed the folded fabric against the wound.
Serrano grimaced.
“Less good.”
Naomi nearly laughed and hated that too.
This was not how she had imagined confronting her biological father.
There should have been rage.
Accusations.
Justice.
Not her hands stained with his blood.
Not Lucas helping keep him alive.
Not Amara shaking beside him.
Naomi looked across the chamber.
Mercer sat against the wall now, Ross guarding him.
Beatrice stood several feet away.
Elias had not moved.
He simply stared at Serrano.
Naomi’s anger surged.
“You.”
Elias looked toward her.
“You told him that lie.”
His face remained exhausted.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I told you.”
“No. You gave me one of those elegant little answers people use when the ugly one makes them ashamed.”
Elias said nothing.
Naomi stood.
Lucas caught her wrist.
“Naomi—”
“I’m okay.”
She wasn’t.
But she needed this.
She walked toward Elias.
“You knew Edmund never rejected him.”
“Yes.”
“You knew Arthur erased Gabriel.”
“Yes.”
“And instead of telling him the truth, you told him his father knew about him and chose Hudson.”
Elias’s eyes lowered.
“Yes.”
Serrano spoke from the floor.
“Say why.”
Elias looked at him.
“Gabriel—”
“Say why.”
The old man’s face finally cracked.
“Because I needed you angry.”
Silence filled the bell chamber.
Naomi stared.
Serrano’s expression became empty.
Elias continued.
“The Covenant was being infiltrated. Governments were compromising routes. Collectors were paying officials. Traffickers were learning how we relocated witnesses.”
“So you needed a weapon,” Adrian said.
Elias looked toward him.
“Yes.”
“And you chose him.”
“Yes.”
Serrano laughed weakly.
“A bastard Taylor boy nobody wanted.”
Elias shook his head.
“No.”
“You saw exactly what everyone else saw.”
Serrano’s voice grew harsher.
“Something useful.”
Elias closed his eyes.
Serrano looked toward Naomi.
“You wanted to know how monsters are made?”
Naomi held his gaze.
“No.”
That surprised him.
“I wanted to know how you became one.”
“There’s a difference?”
“Yes.”
She looked toward Elias.
“He gave you a lie.”
Then back to Serrano.
“You decided what to build with it.”
His expression hardened.
There it was again.
The line he wanted crossed.
The excuse he wanted offered.
Naomi would not give it to him.
“You were hurt,” she continued. “You were manipulated. You were betrayed. And then you betrayed people who had never done anything to you.”
Serrano stared at her.
“You kidnapped my mother.”
Evelyn.
The woman who had raised her.
“You kidnapped Emily.”
“You had my father murdered.”
His face changed.
Naomi noticed.
“Don’t.”
Serrano looked away.
“Look at me.”
Slowly, he did.
“You don’t get forgiveness because somebody finally explains your pain.”
His eyes filled.
“I know.”
Naomi stopped.
She had expected denial.
Arrogance.
Anything except that.
Serrano swallowed.
“I know.”
Behind them, Mercer began laughing.
Quietly at first.
Then louder.
Ross pressed the barrel of her weapon closer.
“What is funny?”
“All of you.”
Naomi turned.
Mercer looked around the chamber.
“Thirty years of planning. Generations of secrets. A network spanning continents. And the final guardians of it are holding a family therapy session beneath the fifth bell.”
Adrian moved toward him.
“I can make you need therapy.”
“Adrian.”
Naomi’s warning stopped him.
Barely.
She looked at Mercer.
“Why did you shoot him?”
Mercer’s humor vanished.
“Because he cannot be allowed to inherit the Covenant.”
“He stepped away from the rope.”
“For one moment.”
“You didn’t know what he was going to do.”
“I know exactly what Gabriel does with weakness.”
Serrano spoke from the floor.
“And I know what you do with knowledge.”
Mercer glanced at him.
“At least I respect it.”
“No,” Naomi said.
Mercer looked toward her.
“You worship it.”
Something flashed across his face.
Joseph’s letter.
Daniel understands the problem but loves knowledge too much to destroy it.
Naomi saw it now.
“You never wanted us to dissolve the Covenant.”
Mercer said nothing.
“You gave us Dad’s letter because you thought we’d fail.”
Still nothing.
“You thought Adrian and I would reach the bell, see what all of this was worth, and decide somebody needed to keep it.”
Mercer’s jaw tightened.
Adrian stared at him.
“You told me Joseph wanted it ended.”
“He wanted centralized control ended.”
“He said the Keeper should end.”
“Joseph was grieving.”
Naomi laughed in disbelief.
“There it is.”
Mercer’s eyes narrowed.
“The part where you decide which of a dead man’s instructions count because you think you understand him better than he understood himself.”
“I knew Joseph for thirty-five years.”
“I knew him as my father.”
“That does not make you an expert on the Covenant.”
“No.”
Naomi stepped closer.
“It makes me an expert on what he regretted.”
Mercer looked at her.
Naomi held Joseph’s letter against her chest.
“He regretted people like you deciding that protecting someone gave you ownership over their choices.”
Adrian’s face hardened.
Mercer looked toward him.
“You were alive because of me.”
Adrian laughed bitterly.
“And there it is.”
“I fed you.”
“You controlled me.”
“I educated you.”
“You isolated me.”
“I protected you.”
“You lied to me.”
“I loved you!”
The words exploded out of Mercer.
Silence.
Adrian froze.
Mercer seemed startled by his own confession.
His face changed.
For the first time, Naomi did not see her professor.
She saw the man who had raised her brother.
Flawed.
Manipulative.
Possessive.
But not emotionless.
Adrian swallowed.
“You loved me?”
“Yes.”
Mercer’s voice broke.
“Then why wasn’t I enough?”
Everyone became still.
Adrian’s eyes filled.
“Why did I always have to become something?”
Mercer stared at him.
“A guardian.”
“A Keeper.”
“A weapon against Elias.”
“Proof that Joseph chose correctly.”
Adrian stepped closer.
“Why couldn’t I just be your son?”
Mercer flinched.
Naomi looked away.
That question belonged to more than Adrian.
It belonged to Gabriel.
To Hudson.
To Amara.
To Lucas.
Maybe even to Joseph.
Children carrying jobs their parents had handed them instead of simply being allowed to belong.
Mercer lowered his head.
“I didn’t know how.”
Adrian nodded slowly.
“I know.”
Those two words hurt more than anger.
Mercer looked up.
Adrian wiped his face.
“And I am done becoming what other men need.”
Naomi reached for his hand.
Her twin took it.
Mercer watched.
Something inside him collapsed.
A deep mechanical groan rolled through the chamber.
Beatrice turned toward the bell.
“No.”
The bluebird symbols carved around its base began illuminating one by one.
Ross looked toward her.
“What is happening?”
“The fifth bell cycle has started.”
Naomi’s pulse jumped.
“I thought it had to be rung.”
“It does.”
Beatrice looked toward a row of ancient clockwork mechanisms set into the wall.
“But once four claimants are present, the bell chamber only remains open for twenty minutes.”