Chapter 14 - The Man I TrustedI called the hospital.
“Do not let that man near my wife.”
The nurse was crying.
“We can't stop him. He's already in the maternity ward.”
“Where is Evelyn?”
“Operating room three.”
We raced there.
Claire followed.
Noah stayed with my father.
The hallway was chaos.
Security guards.
Nurses running.
A fire alarm screaming overhead.
Then I saw him.
Dr. Adrian Cole.
My family's personal physician for twelve years.
He turned.
We knew each other.
He smiled.
“You found me.”
I felt sick.
“You were working with them.”
“For years.”
“Why?”
“Because your father asked me to.”
My father?
“What?”
Adrian stepped closer.
“Your father knew he couldn't protect both children alone.”
“So he used you?”
“Yes.”
“Then why are you here?”
He looked toward the operating room.
“To finish what he started.”
I grabbed him.
Claire pulled me back.
Adrian didn't resist.
He simply whispered:
“You still don't understand.”
“What?”
“The baby isn't what they want.”
I stared at him.
“They want the placenta.”
Silence.
Adrian explained that the mutation was most active in fetal tissue.
The researchers needed a biological sample at birth.
Noah had been the first successful case.
My daughter would be the second.
They didn't merely want to kidnap her.
They wanted something from her before she left the womb.
I turned toward the operating room.
“My wife knows?”
“She was told three years ago.”
“By whom?”
“Your father.”
That explained Evelyn's fear.
Her secret wasn't betrayal.
It was terror.
Adrian handed me a USB drive.
“Everything is here.”
“What is it?”
“The truth about your father.”
I inserted it into a hospital computer.
A video opened.
My father looked straight into the camera.
“If Julian is watching this, then I am dead or missing.”
He paused.
“Evelyn was never chosen because of her family.”
My heart pounded.
“She was chosen because I trusted her.”
I looked at Claire.
My father continued.
“The Mercer network believes our children are the answer to a medical problem.”
He shook his head.
“They are wrong.”
A new document appeared.
Genetic analysis.
No mutation.
None.
I stared.
“My children don't have the mutation.”
Adrian nodded.
“It was never genetic.”
“Then what is it?”
“A false diagnosis.”
My father continued.
“The entire network was built around a lie.”
They had spent decades searching for children from a bloodline that did not exist.
Victor Mercer knew.
Dr. Hale knew.
My father knew.
My mother didn't.
She had believed the lie.
Evelyn had believed the lie.
Everyone had.
Then why had Noah been taken?
Why had people died?
Because someone had spent years making money from the fear.
The research grants.
The private contracts.
The medical trials.
The families who paid millions to control something that wasn't real.
And one person had built the entire empire.
Victor Mercer.
My phone rang.
Victor.
I answered.
His voice was calm.
“You finally know.”
“Where is my wife?”
“With your daughter.”
“You're not touching her.”
He laughed.
“You still don't understand the final part.”
“What?”
“Your father did not fake his death to protect Noah.”
I looked at my father on the screen.
Victor continued:
“He faked his death because he killed the wrong man.”
“What?”
“The real founder is still alive.”
I looked at Claire.
Victor said the final words slowly.
“And he's standing beside you.”
I turned.
My father was behind me.
Blood covered his shirt.
He raised both hands.
“Julian…”
I stared at him.
Victor's voice came through the phone.
“Ask your father who your real grandfather is.”
The line went dead.
My father looked at me.
Then at Noah.
Then at the operating room.
May you like
And whispered:
“He owns everything.”
