Chapter 59 - THE RECORDING
I couldn't move.
“That isn't me,” Julian whispered.
The recording continued.
“Emily will never know.”
“Good.”
“She trusts me.”
“She won't for long.”
I looked at Julian.
He was pale.
“I swear that's not my voice.”
But the voice sounded exactly like him.
Every word.
Every pause.
Every breath.
Then another sentence.
“We need Noah alive until the transfer is complete.”
I covered my mouth.
Julian shook his head.
“Someone is using my identity.”
Michael had warned us about forged identities.
But this was different.
Someone had created a recording designed to destroy Julian.
I looked at the waveform.
The recording had been digitally edited.
I noticed something.
A timestamp.
Twenty years old.
Julian was only a teenager then.
I looked at him.
“You couldn't have made this.”
He nodded.
Someone had cloned his voice.
We needed proof.
Then a file appeared on the screen.
PROJECT ECHO.
Inside were hundreds of voice samples.
Julian's childhood recordings.
Phone calls.
School speeches.
Everything.
Someone had been collecting his voice for decades.
Julian stared at the screen.
“Why?”
Michael answered:
“Because they planned to use your identity long before you met Emily.”
I felt sick.
“This wasn't just about the trust.”
“No.”
Michael looked at me.
“It was about creating the perfect scapegoat.”
“Julian.”
“Yes.”
“Then who was supposed to take the fall?”
Michael pointed to the recording.
“You.”
I froze.
The entire wedding.
The humiliation.
The forged transfers.
The fake evidence.
They weren't trying to make me surrender the trust.
May you like
They were trying to make me look like a criminal.
And Julian was supposed to become the witness against me.
