Noah's Adventure - 20. The Mystery Guest

“Great Uncle Tristan,” Grandma beamed.

Shiloh and I exchanged confused looks. Grandma noticed immediately.

“This is Tristan’s brother. The original Tristan.”

She went on to explain how my great-great-great grandfather had been cloned from his DNA.

I stared at her.

So I was descended from a clone.

Fantastic. As if I didn’t already feel like a walking genetic experiment.

Shiloh squeezed my hand and gave me a look that said you’re still you.

“My brother,” Tristan said, shaking his head, “has always had a flair for the dramatic. He’s been ranting about some grand plot to finally fix an error.”

“An error?” I gasped. “You’re not talking about me, are you?”

Tristan sighed. “The error involves your maternal family and their plan to kill you and your grandparents.”

“They were planning to do what?” Grandma snapped, venom dripping from every word.

Tristan explained how my guardian angel had intercepted the plan and alerted the family. When Tristan—T3—found out, he went ballistic and decided to make them pay.

“So where do my grandparents fit into this?” I asked.

“Simple,” Tristan said. “Your mother never forgave them for the custody battle. Or the money they spent keeping you away from her.”

“They wanted child support,” Grayson scoffed. “Greedy bastards.”

“They wanted everyone who wronged them erased,” Tristan continued. “When Evelyn left her entire fortune to you, that sealed it.”

My stomach growled loudly.

The room went quiet.

Shiloh jumped.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Grandma said gently. “You must finally be hungry.”

She immediately started barking orders to Black Hawk staff, and pizza appeared minutes later like we were summoning it.

“So what now?” I asked. “Because I can tell this isn’t over.”

“I’m trying to find my brother,” Tristan said. “There are gaps in what we were told. I need to know what he’s really planning.”

“You said Noah has a guardian angel,” Shiloh said. “Who is it?”

Tristan hesitated. “A family member. I can’t disclose their identity.”

“My dad?” I asked quietly.

Grandma and Tristan exchanged a look.

Grandma shook her head.

“The answer is complicated,” she said gently. “Family members aren’t required to reveal themselves to the living.”

“You are protected by several people,” Tristan added. “One of them is my husband, Jackson. When he learned about the plot, he insisted the elders be notified so they could decide whether to intervene.”

“You mean they could’ve let my mother kill me?” I snapped.

Shiloh squeezed my hand hard. Grounding me.

“The choices we make are complicated,” Tristan said. “We can’t meddle in every situation. But my brother crossed a line.”

“Why can’t you meddle?” Shiloh asked.

Grandma answered. “Everyone has an expiration date. Changing it has consequences.”

“But you said some family members can heal people,” I argued.

“That’s true,” she said. “But only when that person isn’t meant to die yet.”

“So I was supposed to die?” I whispered.

“No,” Tristan said. “When the elders met, it was decided your fate hadn’t reached that point. You would have been saved.”

I exhaled shakily. None of this made me feel better.

We ate in silence, the pizza barely registering as I replayed everything my mother had tried to do.

Then there was a sharp knock.

Grandma stepped into the hallway.

She was gone longer than expected.

When she returned, her face was carefully neutral.

“The San Diego Police are requesting Noah’s presence at the county morgue,” she said. “They want him to identify the bodies.”

“Bodies?” I whispered. “You mean there was something left?”

“That blast leveled a city block,” Grayson muttered. “There shouldn’t be.”

“This is moving too fast,” Tristan said. “There’s no way DNA came back already.”

“They were insistent,” Grandma said. “I told them Noah will only go with his security team.”

“Something feels wrong,” Shiloh said.

Grace stared at her phone. “I’m waiting on a contact at SDPD.”

“Give me a minute,” Tristan said—and vanished.

Seconds later, shouting echoed down the hallway.

A scuffle.

A gunshot.

Then another.

“Get down!” someone yelled.

The last thing I felt was Shiloh pulling me toward him—

And then everything went black.