Chapter 25: Daniel's Secret

The city kept moving, indifferent to the private disaster gathering inside one family.

Daniel admits Charles Vale ordered him to create an emergency authorization profile years earlier, and Victor later threatened Daniel's sick father to keep it active.

Daniel understood that the next choice would be remembered long after the explanation. Nothing between them was simple now. Attraction lived beside anger; tenderness stood beside evidence. Every kind act raised the same dangerous question: was this change, or merely fear wearing a better suit?

He offers to testify even though it will end his career and expose his obstruction.

"I spent ten years making Adrian invulnerable. All I did was make him easy to impersonate."

The moment did not repair what came before. It did, however, alter what might come after.

Before he can sign his statement, Daniel vanishes.