The safe house had become an unlikely home over the past three days, though the tension in the air was thick enough to cut with a knife. After the mysterious warning message, they'd moved the real Adriana—who had arrived barely an hour after they'd discovered the imposter—to Nathan's most secure location while they tried to piece together who had been masquerading as her and why.
The real Adriana Volkov was nothing like the cold, calculating woman they'd first met. She was younger, more vulnerable, with eyes that held the particular haunted quality Adelina recognized from her own mirror. The kind of look that came from questioning your very existence on a daily basis.
"You dream about your other life too," Adriana said quietly, curled up on the couch beside Adelina. They'd been sharing stories for hours, comparing the fragments of memories that felt real but couldn't possibly be their own.
"Every night," Adelina admitted, tucking her legs beneath her. "Sometimes I wake up expecting to be in places I've never been, missing people I've never met."
"The car accident," Adriana whispered, her Russian accent softer now than when she was defensive. "I can still feel the steering wheel under my hands, the way the car spun on the ice. But I also remember... being created. The first moment of consciousness in this body. How is that possible?"
Nathan looked up from his laptop where he'd been monitoring security feeds, his expression troubled. The question had been haunting all of them since Adriana's arrival.
"Maybe they didn't just clone your bodies," he said carefully. "Maybe they somehow... copied consciousness too. Merged memories from real people with artificial constructs."
The thought sent a chill down Adelina's spine. It was one thing to discover you were artificially created—it was another to realize that someone else's life, someone else's death, had been weaponized to give you the illusion of authenticity.
"The woman who pretended to be me," Adriana continued, "she knew things about my life in Moscow. Personal things. My mother's maiden name, my favorite restaurant, the scar on my knee from when I was seven." Her voice broke slightly. "How could she know those things if they weren't somehow recorded, archived, stolen along with everything else?"
Adelina reached over and took Adriana's hand. The gesture felt strange—comforting a woman who wore her face but carried someone else's pain—but also oddly natural. They were sisters of a sort, bound by the impossible circumstances of their creation.
"We'll figure it out," Adelina promised. "Together."
The front door opened with a soft chime, and Sebastian walked in carrying coffee and pastries from the French bakery down the street. He'd been making these small gestures of kindness since Adriana's arrival, though he tried to play them off as practical necessity.
"Thought you might be hungry," he said, setting the bags on the kitchen counter. "Mrs. Chen at the bakery says the croissants are fresh this morning."
Adriana's cheeks flushed pink as she watched him unpack the food with careful precision. "You didn't have to—"
"It's nothing," Sebastian interrupted, but his eyes lingered on her face a moment too long before he looked away.
Nathan noticed the exchange and his jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. Adelina caught the look and felt her stomach clench with worry. Things were complicated enough without adding romantic entanglements to the mix.
"Sebastian," Nathan said carefully, "maybe you should go check in with the office. I'm sure there are things that need your attention."
"Actually, I was hoping to stay," Sebastian replied, his voice polite but firm. "Adriana mentioned she'd like to understand more about how our family operates, the business dynamics she might encounter. I thought I could help with that."
"That's very kind," Adriana said softly, and the genuine gratitude in her voice made Sebastian's entire posture soften.
Nathan's phone buzzed insistently, and he glanced at it with a frown. "It's my mother. She wants to see us. All of us."
The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees. None of them had told Elena about Adriana's existence yet, though with the network of connections the Gavrila family maintained, it was probably only a matter of time before she found out.
"Maybe that's not such a good idea," Adelina said carefully.
"We don't really have a choice," Nathan replied grimly. "She's already sent a car. It's downstairs."
The Gavrila estate looked exactly as imposing as Adelina remembered, all marble columns and perfectly manicured gardens that spoke of old money and older secrets. Elena was waiting for them in the formal sitting room, her posture regal as always, but her eyes were sharp with suspicion and something that might have been fear.
"So," Elena said without preamble, her gaze moving between Adelina and Adriana with clinical precision, "there are two of you now."
"Mother," Nathan started, but Elena held up a hand.
"I've had my people investigating ever since the reports started coming in about multiple Adelinas appearing across the city. What I want to know is how many more of these... experiments... we can expect to deal with."
"They're not experiments," Adelina said firmly. "They're people. Women who deserve the same chances at life and happiness that anyone else does."
"Are they?" Elena's voice was cold. "Because from where I'm sitting, they look like weapons designed to destabilize everything we've built. How do I know this one," she gestured to Adriana, "isn't just another plant from Elise? Another way to get close to my family?"
Adriana flinched as if she'd been slapped, and Sebastian stepped closer to her, his protective instincts clearly triggered.
"She's been through enough," Sebastian said quietly, but his voice carried steel. "She doesn't deserve to be treated like a threat just because of how she was created."
Elena's eyebrows rose. "And now my youngest son is championing the cause as well. How... predictable."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Sebastian demanded.
"It means that this family has a history of falling for beautiful, mysterious women with complicated origins," Elena replied smoothly. "And it rarely ends well for us."
The silence that followed was deafening. Adelina felt heat rise in her cheeks, but before she could respond, Adriana stood up abruptly.
"I should go," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "I never should have come here. I'm nothing but trouble for all of you."
"No," Adelina said firmly, standing up as well. "You're not going anywhere. You're my sister in every way that matters, and if this family can't accept that, then maybe we need to reconsider what family means."
Nathan's head snapped toward her, his eyes wide with something that looked like betrayal. "Adelina..."
"What?" she demanded. "Are you going to defend this? Your mother just called us both weapons and experiments to our faces, and you're worried about me standing up for someone who shares my impossible existence?"
"I'm worried about you choosing someone you've known for three days over the family that's stood by you for months," Nathan shot back, his voice sharp with hurt.
"I'm not choosing anyone over anyone," Adelina replied, but even as she said it, she could hear how hollow it sounded.
"Aren't you?" Nathan stood up, his business mask slipping to reveal the vulnerable man underneath. "Because it seems like ever since she arrived, you've been more interested in bonding with her over your shared trauma than in protecting what we've built together."
"That's not fair," Adelina protested, but doubt was creeping into her voice. Had she been neglecting Nathan? Pulling away without realizing it?
"Isn't it?" Nathan's voice was quiet now, dangerous. "When was the last time we talked about us, Adelina? About our future, our dreams, our plans? All we talk about anymore is Project Eden and saving your sisters and fighting Elise. When do we get to just be Nathan and Adelina again?"
The question hung in the air between them like a challenge. Adelina realized with growing horror that she didn't have a good answer. Ever since learning about the other clones, about the scope of Elise's plans, she'd been so focused on the bigger picture that she'd lost sight of the intimate, personal life she and Nathan had built together.
"I..." she started, then stopped, unsure of what to say.
"Maybe your mother is right," Adriana said quietly, her voice thick with self-loathing. "Maybe I am just a weapon designed to destroy what you've built. Maybe my very presence here is part of Elise's plan."
"Don't," Sebastian said firmly, moving to stand beside her. "Don't let them make you feel like you don't belong somewhere. You have just as much right to happiness, to family, to love as anyone else."
Elena's laugh was bitter. "Love? You've known this girl for three days, Sebastian. What you're feeling isn't love—it's misguided protectiveness and physical attraction to a familiar face."
"You don't know what I'm feeling," Sebastian replied, his voice steady despite the anger in his eyes.
"I know more than you think," Elena shot back. "I know that both of my sons seem determined to complicate our lives with women who come with more baggage than international airport carousels. I know that every time we think we've found peace, another crisis arrives wearing Adelina's face and carrying someone else's agenda."
"Enough," Nathan said sharply, but the damage was already done.
Adelina felt something inside her chest crack. The careful balance she'd been trying to maintain—between her old life and her new one, between her artificial nature and her human connections, between her loyalty to Nathan and her responsibility to her sisters—was crumbling.
"You want to know the truth?" she asked, her voice rising with each word. "The truth is that I'm tired of pretending everything is normal when nothing about my existence is normal. I'm tired of acting like a devoted wife when I don't even know if my feelings for you are real or programmed. I'm tired of trying to fit into your perfect family when your mother makes it clear every day that I'm an intruder who doesn't belong."
Nathan looked like she'd physically struck him. "Adelina..."
"And maybe," she continued, her voice breaking now, "maybe I'm tired of trying to choose between being the woman you fell in love with and being the person I need to be to save the hundreds of women out there who share my DNA and my curse."
The room fell silent except for the soft ticking of Elena's antique clock on the mantelpiece. Everyone was staring at Adelina, but she only had eyes for Nathan, whose face had gone pale with hurt and understanding.
"So what are you saying?" he asked quietly.
Before Adelina could answer, her phone buzzed with an incoming call. The caller ID made her blood run cold: Dr. Viktor Reeves.
"That's impossible," she whispered, staring at the screen. "He's dead. I watched him die."
The phone continued to ring, and with trembling fingers, Adelina answered it.
"Hello, Adelina," came Viktor's familiar voice, as calm and clinical as ever. "I think it's time we talked."