Flashback

Flashback

Rebecca's POV

"Hello, Daddy," Emma said, pointing straight at me.
My heart stopped. After twenty years of planning, twenty years of waiting, my daughter had finally figured it out.
But I couldn't let the others know. Not yet.
"Emma, what are you talking about?" I said, trying to sound confused. "I'm Rebecca Chen. I'm your sister."
Emma's smile was cold and beautiful. Just like her mother's had been.
"No," Emma said. "You're not Rebecca Chen. Rebecca Chen died three months ago, just like her sister Sarah. You're someone else wearing her face."
The room went dead silent. Everyone was looking at me, trying to understand what Emma was saying.
"That's impossible," David said. "We've known Rebecca for months."
Emma laughed, and the sound sent chills down my spine. She was finally becoming who she was meant to be.
"Have you really known her?" Emma asked. "Or have you known what she wanted you to know?"
I had to think fast. Emma was too smart for her own good. Just like I'd taught her to be.
"Emma, you're in shock," I said gently. "You're not thinking clearly."
"I'm thinking more clearly than I ever have," Emma answered. "Daddy."
That's when the memories hit me like a wave. I couldn't stop them from coming back.
Three months ago...
I was running through the warehouse area, my heart pounding with fear. I'd just learned what Vincent was really doing with those young women, and I had to get away before he found me.
But I was too late.
Vincent's guys surrounded me in an alley. I tried to fight, but there were too many of them.
"Rebecca Martinez," Vincent said, walking up to me. "You've been asking too many questions."
"I know what you're doing," I said, blood running from my mouth. "I know about the trafficking ring."
Vincent smiled. "Do you? Do you really know what's going on here?"
He pulled out his phone and showed me a picture. It was Emma, walking out of her apartment, totally unaware she was being watched.
"Your cousin is very pretty," Vincent said. "It would be a shame if something happened to her."
"Leave Emma alone," I begged. "She doesn't know anything."
"She doesn't have to know anything," Vincent said. "She just has to die."
That's when someone stepped out of the shadows behind Vincent. Someone I'd never seen before, but who made Vincent look scared.
"Change of plans," the man said.
Vincent turned around. "Boss? I thought you were—"
"I'm exactly where I need to be," the man said. "Kill Rebecca, but keep her face."
My blood turned to ice. "What does that mean?"
The stranger looked at me with eyes that seemed familiar somehow. "It means someone very important to me needs to be protected. And the best way to protect her is to become you."
That was the last thing I remembered before everything went black.
Back in the present...
"The real Rebecca Martinez died that night," I said quietly, dropping the charade. "I took her place to get close to Emma."
Emma nodded. "And you've been playing Rebecca for three months, getting everyone to trust you, making them think you were the hero."
"I am the hero," I said. "I've been protecting you."
"From everyone except yourself," Emma said.
Marcus stepped forward, his gun trained on me. "Who are you really?"
I looked around the building at all these people who thought they knew what was happening. They had no idea.
"My real name is Alexander Cross," I said. "But Emma knows me by a different name."
Emma's eyes filled with tears, but she kept her voice steady. "Tell them."
"I'm Emma's real father," I said. "And I've been running the trafficking operation for twenty years."
David cursed and raised his gun. "You're the Ghost. The one we've been hunting."
"The one you could never catch," I amended. "Because I was always three steps ahead of you."
Jess was looking at me in horror. "You killed an entire family just to hide your daughter."
"I killed them to save my daughter," I said. "Emma's real mother was going to turn me in to the FBI. She was going to destroy everything I'd built."
"So you murdered her," Marcus said.
"I loved her," I said simply. "But she picked the law over her family. I picked my family over everything else."
Emma was crying now, but her voice was strong. "You gave me a dead girl's identity."
"I gave you a life," I said. "A safe life, away from my world. I watched you grow up, made sure you were safe, guided you from the shadows."
"You manipulated me," Emma said.
"I prepared you," I amended. "For the day when you'd have to choose between the life I gave you and the life you were born for."
Vincent started laughing from his chair. "This is great. The great Alexander Cross, finally revealed."
I pulled out my gun and shot Vincent in the head. He died quickly.
"I never liked loose ends," I said.
Everyone in the room tensed, but I kept talking.
"For twenty years, I've built the most successful criminal group in American history. Money, power, ties that reach into every level of government."
"Including the FBI," David said sadly.
"Especially the FBI," I agreed. "Did you really think it was an accident that you were ordered to hunt for me? I requested you directly, David. You're good, but not good enough to catch me."
Emma wiped her tears. "Why reveal yourself now?"
I looked at my daughter – this beautiful, strong woman I'd watched grow up from afar.
"Because it's time for you to take over," I said.
The room went quiet.
"Take over what?" Emma asked.
"Everything," I said. "The trafficking ring, the money laundering, the government ties. I built it all for you."
"I don't want it," Emma said.
"You don't have a choice," I said gently. "Because everyone in this room now knows who you really are. The FBI will never let you go. They'll use you as bait for the rest of your life."
I was right, and everyone knew it.
"But if you take over my group," I continued, "you'll have the power to protect yourself. To protect the people you care about."
Emma looked around at Marcus, Jess, even the body of Vincent.
"And if I refuse?"
I smiled sadly. "Then we all die tonight. Because I've rigged this building with enough explosives to level three city blocks."
Jess started moving toward the door, but I shook my head.
"The doors are locked, and the bombs are on a timer. We have ten minutes to work this out."
"You're bluffing," David said.
I pulled out a remote control with a big red button. "Am I?"
Emma stared at me with a combination of love and hate that broke my heart.
"What do you want from me?" she asked.
"I want you to choose," I said. "Die as Emma Martinez, the helpless victim. Or live as Emma Cross, the most powerful woman in America."
"That's not a choice," Emma said.
"It's the only choice I can give you," I said. "The timer is counting down. Nine minutes left."
Emma closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, something had changed. She looked older somehow. Harder.
"If I agree to take over your operation," Emma said, "what happens to everyone else in this room?"
I looked at Marcus, Jess, and David. "That's up to you. You'll be the boss."
Emma walked over to Marcus and took his gun. He let her have it without a fight.
Then she walked over to me.
"Eight minutes left," I said.
Emma raised the gun and pointed it at my chest.
"I have a better idea," she said.
"What's that?"
Emma's smile was cold and perfect. "I kill you, take over your organization anyway, and keep everyone in this room alive to help me run it."
I felt pride grow in my chest. She really was my daughter.
"There's just one problem with that plan," I said.
"What?"
I held up the radio control. "If my heart stops beating, the bombs go off automatically. Kill me, and we all die."
Emma looked at the remote, then at me.
"Seven minutes," I said.
That's when Emma did something that surprised even me.
She turned the gun around and handed it to me grip-first.
"Then you'll have to trust me," she said.
"Trust you to do what?"
Emma smiled, and for the first time, I saw myself in her face.
"To be everything you taught me to be," she said. "But better."
I took the gun, confused. "Emma, what are you—"
That's when I realized what she'd done.
While everyone was focused on the gun, Emma had slipped something out of my pocket.
The remote control.
"Six minutes," Emma said, holding the explosive. "Now here's what's going to happen, Daddy."
I stared at my daughter in amazement. She'd outplayed me.
"You're going to tell everyone in this room exactly how your organization works," Emma said. "Who your contacts are, where the money is hidden, how to access your network."
"And then?"
Emma's smile got bigger.
"Then you're going to disappear forever. And I'm going to use everything you built to destroy the crime ring from the inside."
I felt my heart swell with pride and fear.
"You can't destroy it," I said. "It's too big. Too tied. Too powerful."
"Maybe," Emma said. "But I can try. And I have something you never had."
"What's that?"
Emma looked around at Marcus, Jess, and David.
"People who actually care about me," she said. "Not people I'm manipulating or controlling. People who choose to help me because it's the right thing to do."
I understood then that I'd made a mistake. I'd raised Emma to be like me, but she'd grown up to be better than me.
"Five minutes," Emma said. "Start talking."
But before I could say anything, the warehouse door burst open again.
Standing there was someone I thought I'd killed twenty years ago.
Someone who should have been dead.
Someone who'd been hunting me longer than anyone else living.
Emma's real mother walked into the warehouse, very much living, and pointed a gun directly at my head.
"Hello, Alex," she said. "Miss me?