Chapter 12 - The Other DaughterLena met me in a parking garage beneath a closed shopping center.
She arrived wearing a plain gray coat.
No makeup.
No jewelry.
She looked younger than twenty-eight.
But her eyes did not.
Those eyes had seen too much.
“You look like her,” she said.
“Who?”
“Rebecca.”
My chest tightened.
“You knew her?”
“No.”
“Then how?”
“Photographs.”
I waited.
Lena crossed her arms.
“I know what EverBloom did.”
“Then why work there?”
“Because leaving isn't as easy as you think.”
She told me the truth.
She had been raised inside the system.
Different families.
Different addresses.
Always monitored.
She was told her parents had died.
She wasn't allowed to ask questions.
When she became an adult, EverBloom offered her a job.
At first she believed it was a normal laboratory position.
Then she discovered the archived research.
Genetic donor files.
Reproductive histories.
Patient codes.
And one day she found her own.
“You weren't born in 1998,” I said.
She shook her head.
“I was.”
“Then why did they hide you?”
“Because I wasn't supposed to survive.”
I froze.
“What?”
She opened her phone.
A medical report.
Neonatal complications.
Experimental treatment.
Cell collection.
They had harvested samples from her as an infant.
Repeatedly.
Lena survived.
But she wasn't the first child.
There had been another.
A male infant.
He died.
I felt sick.
“Why?”
“Failed protocol.”
“What protocol?”
“Seedline.”
The same research.
The same genetic lineage.
The same family.
I looked at her.
“So Project Orchid is just the newest version.”
“Yes.”
“Who is actually behind it?”
“Eleanor.”
“Only Eleanor?”
Lena shook her head.
“She has partners.”
“Who?”
“People in medicine. Finance. Research.”
“Names.”
She hesitated.
“Your father.”
I already knew.
“Who else?”
She looked directly at me.
“Daniel Mercer.”
My blood went cold.
“My director?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He's been moving money through your company.”
“No.”
“He is.”
I wanted to argue.
But I remembered his warning.
Don't access any additional EverBloom files.
He hadn't asked me to stop investigating because he feared for me.
He had asked because he feared what I would find.
Lena handed me a USB drive.
“Everything is on this.”
I took it.
“Why give it to me?”
“Because I can't expose them alone.”
“You can testify.”
“I can.”
She looked over her shoulder.
“But I may not live long enough to.”
A car entered the garage.
We both went silent.
Black SUV.
No headlights.
It rolled slowly past us.
Then stopped.
Lena grabbed my arm.
“Don't move.”
The SUV sat there.
Five seconds.
Ten.
Then it drove away.
We waited.
Finally Lena said:
“They know you're with me.”
“How?”
She shook her head.
“They've been tracking my badge.”
I looked at the USB.
“We go to the police.”
“Not yet.”
“Why?”
“Because the files contain evidence of things that are still technically legal.”
“Then what?”
“Find the illegal part.”
I frowned.
“What illegal part?”
“The ownership records.”
She told me Eleanor had been using private trusts to control medical assets.
The structure itself wasn't necessarily illegal.
But some payments had been misclassified.
Some agreements had been backdated.
Some patient consent forms had been altered.
That mattered.
Then she said something worse.
“Your Easter contract was backdated too.”
I looked at her.
“By how much?”
“Sixteen days.”
I checked.
She was right.
The agreement claimed execution on a date before the family dinner.
But I had not even received it then.
That meant they had already planned to argue that I had consented.
The contract wasn't just pressure.
It was evidence fabrication.
I felt anger replace fear.
“Can we prove it?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Your phone.”
“What about it?”
“Your messages with Vanessa.”
I opened them.
Lena pointed to the timestamps.
The day after the supposed execution date, Vanessa had texted:
Need to talk to you about something important.
I looked at the fake contract date.
Sixteen days earlier.
Proof.
Not complete.
But enough to raise questions.
Then Lena opened the last folder on the USB.
A video.
Recorded inside EverBloom.
I pressed play.
The camera showed a conference room.
Eleanor.
Grant.
My father.
Daniel.
Vanessa.
Five people around a table.
Vanessa looked younger.
Eleanor spoke.
“We don't need Claire to understand.”
Grant said:
“She'll refuse.”
My father replied:
“Then we pressure her through the family.”
Daniel added:
“And if that fails?”
Eleanor smiled.
“Then we use the one thing Claire has always feared.”
Vanessa asked:
“What?”
Eleanor leaned toward them.
“Being alone.”
The video ended.
I stared at the screen.
They knew me.
They had studied me.
And they had built the entire plan around the one weakness they believed I could never outgrow.
Lena looked at me.
“There is one more file.”
“What is it?”
“My birth agreement.”
I opened it.
The first page contained her legal name.
The second contained genetic information.
The third contained a clause labeled:
Sibling Compatibility Reservation.
I read it twice.
Then looked at Lena.
“What does this mean?”
May you like
She whispered:
“It means they planned for you before you were born.”
