CHAPTER 3: THE NAME IN THE FILES
CHAPTER 3: THE NAME IN THE FILES
That night, Alexander didn’t go home.
He went somewhere he hadn’t been in years.
Mitchell Enterprises’ private records archive.
The building was silent after midnight—glass, steel, and security lights that made everything feel like it had already been judged.
A single security guard nodded as he passed.
No one stopped him.
No one ever stopped Alexander Mitchell.
He entered the archive room and locked the door behind him.
Then he opened a file.
Then another.
Then another.
And what he found did not feel like discovery.
It felt like memory returning too late.
Flight records.
Insurance transfers.
Medical custody logs.
And one repeated signature across documents that should never have crossed paths:
RICHARD HARRINGTON
Alexander’s hands trembled slightly.
“No…” he whispered.
Because it wasn’t just fraud.
It was coordination.
Control.
Erasure.
And at the center of it all—
A sealed identity record labeled:
UNKNOWN MINOR – SURVIVOR TRANSFER – CASE 771
He opened it.
A photograph fell out.
A child.
Golden curls.
Blue eyes.
Emma.
Alexander stepped back as if the floor had dropped.
“No,” he said again, louder this time.
But the system didn’t care what he believed.
The truth was already documented.
Already signed.
May you like
Already buried.
And Richard Harrington had been the one holding the shovel.
