The Phoenix

by Jillian Dodd

  “In other words, no emotional reunion?”

  “Not until we know if we can trust them. They have been lying to us at every turn. But there’s something bigger going on. I don’t understand why they manipulated us the way they did, but we need to at least listen to their story.”

  “And be on guard,” Ari says, giving me a hug. “Thank you for waiting for me.” He opens his blazer and flashes a shoulder holster. “And if they aren’t on our side?”

  “We take them out together,” I say, glaring defiantly toward the camera with the hope that those inside are watching.

  I trek back up the stairs, Ari following behind me. He’s full of nervous energy, and his heart seems to have sped up. I know he’s mad, maybe even looking for a fight.

  Which is not what we need.

  I turn around and whisper to calm down.

  All three men are standing in the same spots they were when I left them.

  “I thought Ari should be here when we went over all of this. Obviously, we need answers. But, first,” I say, “Aristotle Allister Bradford-Von Allister, this is the man who I believed to be my father and who helped raise me, Blake Cassleberry.” They shake hands, and then I turn to our grandfather. “And this man, who you met as Ares’s attorney, is—I just realized that I don’t know your name.”

  “I’m Alexander Von Allister, your grandfather.” He puts his hand on Ari’s shoulder and adds, “I didn’t know until recently.”

  Ari nods at him. I feel a little like crying.

  But I can’t.

  I have to be strong. I have to be a warrior. The firestorm. Only this time, I won’t be killing. I will be using the other skills I was taught to separate fact from fiction.

  I stand up straight and tall. “And this is Ares Von Allister.”

  “Your father,” Ares corrects.

  “Right now, as far as we’re concerned,” I say, “you were the father given to us in our cover story. Whether or not you are our biological father remains to be seen.”

  “In other words, we have some explaining to do,” Blake says with a hearty laugh. “Chill out, Calliope. How about we move to the living room, take a seat, and discuss this calmly?”

  “Fine,” Ari and I agree.

  We sit. In a conversation area centered around a large brick fireplace with what appears to be an original of Gustav Klimt’s Bauerngarten hanging above it. It features a profusion of brightly colored poppies, daisies, and other flowers.

  “My mother had a print of this painting in our home, and it was on the cover of a notebook she always carried with her.”

  “Her love for that painting is what made me purchase the original,” Ares confirms.

  I can see the love shining in his eyes mixed with the sorrow and pain he still feels over losing her. And probably the guilt.

  “Let’s start at the beginning,” Blake suggests, turning toward me and allowing me a better look at his scars.

  “No,” Ares disagrees. “We’re going to talk about more recent events. Huntley, you asked my old man if it was true that I told your mother that Aristotle had died at birth and then gave him to the general as a bribe.”

  “Which he confirmed that you had.”

  “And it’s what you told me,” Blake says.

  “No, it’s what you told me,” Ares counters. “I assume it’s the lie that Kelley told you. I couldn’t prove differently, so I went along with it. And my father was only recently told that you were his grandchildren. I let everyone believe the worst about me because I loved your mother. We’re all fighting for her cause, and I didn’t want to disillusion anyone.”

  Ares puts his head down. I can see his chest tremble as he tries to steady his breathing. It was hard for him to let them believe something like that about him.

  When he looks up, his eyes are ringed with red, and it’s obvious he’s holding back his emotions.

  “I will preface what I’m about to say with some evidence,” he finally says. “Six months before your nineteenth birthdays, I received a letter. Apparently, your mother had set it up to be delivered before she was killed. Being a covert operative means you never know when your life could end, and it’s clear that, on that specific date, she wanted me to know. I suppose she wanted you both to be legal adults before I learned the truth.

  “It’s probably not a big surprise that I was a bit of a nerd in high school. Not that I didn’t enjoy social activities, but my head was so full of ideas. I was bored with school and always working things through on what would be my greatest inventions. I wasn’t popular but wasn’t unpopular either, and Kelley was my best friend. She was smart and beautiful, and I cared for her very much. Of course, I never told her outright, and we never dated back then, but I did everything in my power to help her, to be there when she cried—even though she wouldn’t tell me why she was upset. I didn’t learn the extent of her stepfather’s abuse until the day I found her badly beaten. Don’t get me wrong; there were signs, but when I asked, she would always deny. She was always a good liar, I guess. Good at pretending to be in control when everything around her was falling apart.

  “She called me her warrior because of my name. And she broke my heart in the hospital when she told me we couldn’t see each other anymore. Because I loved her, I understood. Her stepfather was a policeman. He was actively trying to find her. She was afraid that he would use me to do so. We didn’t have contact the entire time she was away at college under her new name, Charlotte Cassleberry.”

  “After college,” our grandfather adds, “she wondered if the name would hold up to scrutiny for a job in the government. When I learned how she had been trained in martial arts and knew how to use a gun, I hired her on the spot. Back then, it was my job to recruit and train agents. When she moved on, I became her handler while I continued to train other agents.. Before she died, she came to me, said she needed a holiday and would be taking a couple of weeks off. I didn’t hear from her during that time until she arrived home and told me she had discovered a plot that could end the world as we know it.”

  “That was the night she was killed,” Ari states. “And the night Huntley managed to escape from The Priest.”

  “That’s correct,” Ares says. “But let’s go back to when you were conceived. Kelley and I hadn’t seen each other in a while. I knew I was under scrutiny from the government and even under CIA watch when I traveled. I built high-tech military goods, but I was careful who I sold them to. I offered our government a first look and always gave them long, exclusive contracts. But I suppose there was always that worry.

  “Your mother and I ran into each other at a party. I had started my business, made my first twenty million, and was on top of the world. I was enjoying the spoils of my hard work at the Montrovian Grand Prix with my best friends—”

  “Jack, Malcolm, Aleksandr, and Gio?” I interject.

  “Yes,” he says with a melancholy smile.

  “And you shared a night of passion,” Ari adds. “We know. We read it in her letter.”

  “What letter?” Ares asks.

  “There was a letter in a Montrovian safety deposit box,” I explain. “Would you like me to read it to you?”

  Ares squints his eyes in curiosity. “It spoke of our relationship? Yes, I would very much like to hear it.”

  I pick my backpack up off the floor, pull the letter out of a secret compartment hidden in the bottom, and then read aloud.

  “My darling daughter,

  “If you are reading this, it means you have discovered the Zurich safety deposit box and found your way here. You know about my profession as a covert operative for our government, and more than likely, I have passed and taken my secret to the grave.

  “I lied to you, and I’m sorry for that, but it was for my safety as well as your own.

  “As you know, my stepfather was abusive. One day, in a fit of rage, I was beaten badly, way worse than usual, and was left to die. It’s a miracle that a friend of mine drove by moments later and noticed
our front door ajar. He took me to a hospital two towns away where he lied about my name in an attempt to protect me. Charlotte was his dog’s name, and I’m not exactly sure where Cassleberry came from.

  “Anyway, I was diagnosed with a cracked skull along with a broken nose, jaw, and cheekbone. It was a long recovery, and when the surgeries were over, I looked like a different person. My friend suggested that I continue to be Charlotte Cassleberry in order to hide from my family. Ares was good with a computer, and like most fathers in DC, his worked a government job. Between the two of them, they created a new identity for me—and, ultimately, you.

  “Enclosed is your real birth certificate. Believe it or not, you have two real birth certificates. One in the name of Calliope Ann Cassleberry and one as Huntley Penelope Bond.

  “The man you thought was your father was actually my partner. He wasn’t my love. That man was Ares Von Allister. At this point in your life, you have probably heard his name. He’s a wealthy inventor and businessman, but I just knew him as my high school friend. He wasn’t my boyfriend, but I did fall in love with him as he nursed me back to health and gave me the gift of freedom from my family. My mother, of course, was searching for me, and my stepfather was a policeman. He questioned Ares numerous times, and because of that, we couldn’t risk being together.

  “One night, years later, we were reunited. Lust took over, and twins were conceived. I was thrilled when I learned I was pregnant, and although Ares had many passions, having children was not one of them. He was upset with me. You don’t need to know all the details, but we decided together that he would not act as your father. That I would raise you alone.

  “So, now, it’s up to you to decide. You can continue life as Calliope Cassleberry or become Huntley Bond. Either way, I would encourage you to meet your father and show him the photos of our life together. He might not give you the love you deserve, but he is an incredibly brilliant human being who you should know.

  “All my love,

  “Mom.”

  “May I see that, please?” Ares asks, so I hand him the letter. He studies it and then looks up. “We shared a day of passion, not a single night, which turned into the best weekend of my life. I whisked her away to Paris and pulled out all the romantic things I could think of—a terraced suite overlooking the Eiffel Tower, caviar and champagne, a shopping spree. And, as the weekend was about to end, I presented her with an engagement ring and asked if she would marry me.”

  I can’t hide my shock. “What did she say?”

  “I didn’t know she was a spy. I didn’t know she was told to get close to me by my own father,” he says, shooting him a pointed look, “in order to steal sales data from my computer. She cried when I proposed and told me the truth about her life and job, so I willingly gave her the data. I had nothing to hide, and although she refused to marry me, she promised to stay in touch, but for years, she didn’t.

  “You might not remember, but I first met you when you were four years old. Your mother was with Blake Cassleberry, and you were introduced to me as Calliope Cassleberry. I never imagined that you were my child—actually, that’s not true. I very much wished the picture were different. That I were married to your mother and that you were my daughter.

  “I spent time with other women during my life, but I never got over her. She was the only woman I ever truly loved. That was the day that she said she wanted you to know me, and that, if anything ever happened to her and Blake, I needed to take care of you. Of course, I agreed.

  “I set up this loft just for that purpose. It was sort of a safe house for your family. Because it was a safe house, we hid the ownership of the home behind a bunch of dummy corporations, and whenever I met the two of you here, I wore a disguise and made sure I hadn’t been followed.”

  “That’s why you pretended to be Uncle Sam?”

  “Yes,” he says, his voice cracking. “Had I known the truth, I would have done things so differently.”

  “Calliope, your mother raised you not to be a covert agent someday,” Blake says. “You have actually been a covert agent since birth. Everything she knew, she taught to you in pieces until it was just a part of your being.”

  “And, when you showed up at the safe house with your story of your mother’s death, surviving an assault from an assassin and a car bomb, you should have been a wreck,” Ares agrees, “but you were confident and assured and very, very skilled, and you didn’t even know it because it was all second nature to you. When I asked you what you wanted to do, you didn’t say you wanted to live with me. All you wanted was to avenge your mother’s death. You told me you needed to be tougher to do that, so I created Blackwood Academy just for you. It was my way of allowing what you wanted even though it wasn’t the path I would have chosen for you. I got my father to train you, and I personally chose all your academic curriculum.”

  “You were incredibly driven,” my grandfather agrees. “And being at Blackwood kept both of us safe.”

  “Six months ago, a few things happened simultaneously. Blake found me. He had heard about the death of Gio’s youngest brother and was worried things were starting again, just like they had with Alessandro. Blake tracked down the assassin who had been hired for the hit—the man who posed as a hunting guide—and interrogated him. That man jumped to his death from a tall building, and all he would say was that, ‘It starts in Montrovia.’

  “Around the same time, unbeknownst to my father and Blake, I received a letter from your mother. Although it’s deeply personal, I’d like you to read it.” He gets up, retrieves a sheet of paper from a nearby writing desk, and then hands it to my brother. “Aristotle, will you please do the honors?”

  “Of course,” Ari says and then starts reading.

  “My dearest Ares,

  “I’ve been digging into the situation, and I can confirm that you were right. I won’t go into detail because that’s not what this letter is about. I have a secret that I need to confess to you. I’m hoping to tell you this when we return, but I believe we are being followed, and if something happens to us, well, I want to make sure that you know the truth when the time is right.

  “I didn’t have just one child. I gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, just like you and Ceres. If you are reading this letter, it means that I have passed and that the children should now be eighteen and a half years old.

  “You’re probably wondering why now, after all these years, I’m telling you this. And I’m just going to say it.

  “The children are yours.

  “I know you are going to be mad that I led you to believe Calliope was Blake’s child. I still vividly remember the pain written across your face. I’ve always loved you, but I knew we could never be together in the way you wanted.

  “Being married and having a family was never in the cards for me. You know what my childhood was like. I wasn’t happy when I discovered I was pregnant. I considered all my options, but I couldn’t bring myself to terminate the pregnancy. I really didn’t know what I was going to do.

  “Ultimately and possibly serendipitously, I had a random encounter at a coffee shop with a woman who commented on my growing belly when I was about five months along. She mentioned that she and her husband had been trying unsuccessfully for years to have a baby. She then got teary-eyed, wished me well, and rushed out. And something about her emotion made me curious, so I followed her home.

  “I found out her name and did background checks on her and her husband. I tore apart every piece of their lives, looking for any hint of impropriety or possible scandal. I got ahold of her husband’s military file and scoured it as well. And only after a thorough vetting did I contact the woman and ask if they had considered adoption.

  “Needless to say, they were overjoyed—not only would they be getting a child, but at that point, I also knew I was having twins. They were nervous, rightfully so—as, in the past, they’d agreed to an adoption, only to have the mother back out.

  “I instructed the hospital staff tha
t the adoptive parents should be the first ones to hold their babies. And things went as planned after our son, Aristotle Allister, was born. I didn’t have time to think about not holding him because I still had another baby to deliver. Things weren’t going well, and there was discussion of a C-section. Thirty-two excruciating minutes later, I gave birth to our daughter, Huntley Penelope.

  “I hope you like their names. They were inspired by Greek gods and the literature of the Renaissance. I guess I hoped, if nothing else, you’d appreciate their names.

  “Anyway, I did what I had sworn I wouldn’t do and asked to hold our daughter. The second they put her into my arms, I fell madly in love. At that point, I considered changing my mind and keeping them both, but I knew I couldn’t do that to the Bradfords, nor could I possibly continue my career in the field with twins. It was going to be difficult enough, making it work with one child.

  “So, I lied to myself. Told myself our son had died at birth. You know that I’ve had to lie most of my life. That lying is second nature to me. And, while I’m sorry for lying to you, I knew I must.

  “So, that’s it. The big reveal. I do hope you never receive this letter. But just in case … enclosed are copies of their personal documents, which have a few modifications pursuant to my cover and to simply protect us all.

  “And Ares, my warrior, just know that I’ve always loved you.

  “Kelley.”

  Tears threaten as Ari reads. I can feel the pain in my mother’s words, and I can see the anguish on Ares’s face. Her lie affected every single one of us in this room, yet here we all are, together in spite of it.

  “What’s with these numbers at the bottom?” Ari asks, holding up the letter.

  “What numbers?” I ask, grabbing the paper and closely looking at it.