The Choice

The Choice

Maya's POV

I grabbed Isabella's phone and threw it over the edge of the building.
"There," I said. "No more timer. No more bomb threat."
Isabella stared at me like I had lost my mind.
"What did you just do?"
"I called your bluff."
"That wasn't a bluff!"
"Yes, it was."
"Maya, you just doomed ten thousand people!"
"No, I didn't. Because there is no bomb."
Everyone was staring at me now.
"How do you know?" Agent Chen asked.
"Because Isabella Romano doesn't blow up buildings full of innocent people."
"How can you be sure?"
"Because she's not a terrorist. She's a businesswoman. Killing random civilians would be bad for business."
Isabella was getting angry now.
"You're wrong."
"Am I? Then call your people and detonate the bomb right now."
"I don't have another phone."
"Use someone else's."
I looked around at everyone.
"Anyone have a phone Isabella can use to blow up ten thousand people?"
Nobody moved.
"See?" I said to Isabella. "They know you're lying too."
Isabella's face was turning red.
"You stupid girl. You have no idea what you've done."
"I've stopped you from manipulating me."
"I was trying to save those people!"
"What people?"
"The ones who are going to die because you won't do what needs to be done!"
I walked closer to Isabella.
"Tell me the truth. What do you really want?"
Isabella looked around at everyone watching us.
Then she sighed.
"I want Dr. Reyes dead."
"Why?"
"Because she destroyed my life."
"How?"
Isabella pointed at Dr. Reyes.
"Ask her. Ask her what she did to my son."
Dr. Reyes had gone very pale.
"Isabella, I can explain—"
"Explain what? How you kidnapped my boy? How you turned him into one of your weapons?"
"What boy?" I asked.
"Alexei. My son Alexei."
I remembered that name.
"The cousin who was supposed to inherit if I died?"
"He's not your cousin. He's my son. And she took him from me fifteen years ago."
I looked at Dr. Reyes.
"Is that true?"
Dr. Reyes was quiet for a long moment.
"Yes."
"Why did you take her son?"
"Because I needed more subjects for the program."
"More subjects?"
"Maya, you weren't the only child I trained. There were dozens of you."
My blood went cold.
"Dozens?"
"The Agent Program required multiple test subjects. Some succeeded. Others..."
"Others what?"
"Others didn't survive the training."
Isabella was crying now.
"She killed my boy. She killed him and turned his body into spare parts for her other experiments."
"That's not true," Dr. Reyes said quickly. "Alexei is alive."
"Where is he?"
"He's... he's in a facility. Being cared for."
"What kind of facility?"
Dr. Reyes didn't answer.
"WHAT KIND OF FACILITY?"
"A psychiatric hospital. The programming... it broke his mind."
Isabella screamed and launched herself at Dr. Reyes.
I had to tackle Isabella to stop her from strangling the doctor.
"Let me go!" Isabella shouted. "Let me kill her!"
"No!"
"She destroyed my son!"
"Then we'll make her fix him!"
"You can't fix what she did!"
"How do you know if you don't try?"
Isabella stopped fighting and looked at me.
"What?"
"Make her tell us where Alexei is. Make her help us get him back."
"He's been in that place for fifteen years, Maya. He probably doesn't even remember who he is."
"Maybe. But maybe not."
I looked at Dr. Reyes.
"Where is he?"
"I can't tell you that."
"Why not?"
"Because if Isabella sees what the programming did to him, it will destroy her."
"That's not your choice to make."
"Yes, it is. I'm his doctor."
"You're his torturer!"
Agent Chen stepped forward.
"Mother, tell them where the boy is."
"Sarah—"
"Tell them, or I will."
Dr. Reyes looked around at all of us.
At Isabella, who was still crying.
At Agent Chen, her daughter who had been dead to her for twenty years.
At me, the weapon she had created.
At the four heirs, who were watching everything with concern.
"He's at the Riverside Institute," she said quietly. "In New Jersey."
"How do we get there?" Isabella asked.
"You can't just walk in. It's a secure facility."
"Then how do we get him out?"
Dr. Reyes was quiet again.
"Mother," Agent Chen said. "How do we get him out?"
"There's a way. But it's dangerous."
"What way?"
"I still have clearance. I could get you inside."
"Why would you help us?"
"Because maybe it's time to stop running from what I've done."
Isabella wiped her eyes.
"If you're lying to me—"
"I'm not lying."
"If this is another trick—"
"It's not a trick."
"Then let's go."
"Wait," I said. "There's something we need to talk about first."
"What?"
"If we do this, if we go get Alexei, what happens after?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, what happens to all of us? What happens to the programming? What happens to the lies?"
Everyone was quiet.
"I don't know," Agent Chen said finally.
"I do," I said.
"What?"
"We disappear."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean we fake our deaths. All of us. We become new people with new names and new lives."
"That's impossible."
"No, it's not. Dr. Reyes did it for Agent Chen twenty years ago. She can do it for us now."
Dr. Reyes was staring at me.
"You want to give up everything? Your inheritance? Your power?"
"What inheritance? What power? It was all fake, remember?"
"Not all of it was fake."
"The parts that matter were."
I looked at the four heirs.
"What do you guys think?"
"I think," Dante said slowly, "that I'm tired of being a criminal."
"I think," Marcus said, "that I want to try being normal for once."
"I think," Luca said, "that starting over sounds amazing."
"I think," Adrian said quietly, "that family is more important than business."
I smiled.
"Then it's settled. We disappear."
"Where will we go?" Agent Chen asked.
"Somewhere quiet. Somewhere safe. Somewhere no one will look for us."
"And Alexei?"
"If he wants to come with us, he can. If not, we'll help him start his own new life."
Isabella was nodding.
"Okay. But first we get my son back."
"Agreed."
Dr. Reyes stood up slowly.
"This is going to be very difficult. The Institute is heavily guarded. And even if we get inside, Alexei might not want to leave."
"Why not?"
"Because the place he's in is the only home he's known for fifteen years. Because change is scary. Because he might not trust us."
"Then we'll have to convince him."
"How?"
I looked at Isabella.
"By bringing his mother."
Isabella started crying again.
"What if he doesn't remember me?"
"Then you'll remind him."
"What if the programming made him hate me?"
"Then you'll love him anyway."
Isabella nodded.
"Okay. Let's do this."
We started walking toward the helicopter.
But we only made it a few steps before Agent Chen's phone rang.
She answered it.
"Hello?"
Her face went white.
"What? When? How many?"
She hung up and looked at us.
"We have a problem."
"What kind of problem?"
"The FBI just raided the Riverside Institute."
"Why?"
"Someone tipped them off. Told them there was illegal human experimentation happening there."
"Who would do that?"
Agent Chen looked at Dr. Reyes.
"Someone who knew where to find the evidence."
Dr. Reyes was backing away from us.
"I had to. I couldn't let you see what I did to that boy."
"What did you do?"
"I called in an anonymous tip three hours ago. The FBI will shut down the Institute and transfer all the patients to other facilities."
"Where?"
"I don't know. Somewhere we'll never find them."
Isabella screamed and ran at Dr. Reyes again.
But this time, Dr. Reyes was ready for her.
She pulled out a small device and pressed a button.
Instantly, I felt the programming trying to activate again.
But this time it was different.
This time it wasn't trying to make me kill.
It was trying to make me forget.
"What did you do?" I gasped.
"Memory wipe protocol," Dr. Reyes said. "In sixty seconds, none of you will remember any of this."
"That's impossible!"
"Is it? You're all still connected to the program. I can activate any protocol I want."
I could feel my memories starting to fade.
The past few weeks.
The past few days.
The past few hours.
"Fight it!" Dante shouted. "Don't let her erase us!"
But it was too late.
I was forgetting.
Forgetting who I was.
Forgetting who they were.
Forgetting everything that mattered.
The last thing I remembered before everything went dark was Dr. Reyes' voice.
"When you wake up, you'll be Maya Chen again. A normal college student with a normal life. And all of this will be just a bad dream."
But as the darkness closed in, I heard something else.
A voice I recognized but couldn't place.
"Hello, sister. Time to wake up for real."
And then everything changed.