Chapter 13 - THE CHILDRENFor three days, we searched.
Hospitals.
Private clinics.
Storage facilities.
Every location connected to Vance Global.
Nothing.
Then Jonathan found a shipping manifest.
Two infant medical capsules.
Transferred from Boston to Switzerland.
Six days after my surgery.
My hands shook.
“They were alive.”
Jonathan nodded.
“Both.”
Flynn stared at the document.
“Why?”
“To use them as biological subjects.”
I couldn't breathe.
My babies had not died.
They had been taken.
And I had spent months grieving two children who might still be alive.
We flew to Switzerland that night.
The facility was hidden beneath a private clinic.
Mason secured a warrant.
The doors opened.
I heard crying.
Tiny.
Weak.
Two voices.
I nearly collapsed.
“Nobody move.”
We entered the room.
Two incubators stood under blue lights.
Two tiny babies.
Alive.
My knees hit the floor.
“Mabel.”
I couldn't answer.
I touched the glass.
The twins were real.
Alive.
My children.
Flynn stood beside me.
He was crying.
“I thought they were dead.”
“So did I.”
He stared at them.
Then looked at me.
“I'm sorry.”
I didn't forgive him.
Not yet.
But I took his hand.
Only for a second.
Behind us, the police found hundreds of files.
But there was one final surprise.
The babies had never been registered as Vance children.
Their names were different.
Subject A.
Subject B.
I felt rage replace grief.
“They turned my children into numbers.”
Jonathan found another file.
It contained a genetic report.
My blood.
Richard's blood.
Flynn's blood.
And one additional sample.
Selina's.
I stared.
“Why is her DNA here?”
Jonathan went pale.
“She isn't just part of the study.”
“What?”
He opened a second report.
Selina was genetically related to my twins.
Not as an aunt.
Not as a distant relative.
As their biological parent.
Flynn stared.
“That isn't possible.”
Jonathan shook his head.
“It is.”
I felt cold.
“Then who is their father?”
Silence.
Then Jonathan looked at Flynn.
“No.”
Flynn stepped backward.
“My blood didn't—”
“Not yours.”
Jonathan pointed to the report.
“The genetic father is Richard Cole.”
Flynn's biological father.
A dead man.
Impossible.
Unless the sample had been preserved.
The babies had been conceived through artificial reproduction.
Someone had used Richard's stored genetic material.
And Selina had been the donor.
My children were genetically unrelated to me.
I stared at them.
Then the truth hit me.
I had carried them.
But someone else had planned them.
“They wanted heirs,” I whispered.
Jonathan nodded.
“Perfect heirs.”
Flynn looked at Selina's records.
“She knew.”
“Yes.”
“Then why did she try to kill Mabel?”
“Because you weren't part of the plan.”
I looked at the incubators.
The babies were breathing.
Alive.
And suddenly the doors behind us locked.
The lights turned red.
An announcement echoed through the facility.
“Emergency protocol activated.”
Jonathan swore.
“What?”
A voice came through the speaker.
Marcus.
“You found the children.”
He laughed.
“Good.”
Flynn screamed:
“Let them go!”
Marcus answered:
“They were never yours.”
The incubators began moving deeper into the facility.
I ran after them.
But the doors slammed shut.
My babies disappeared behind the wall.
May you like
And Marcus spoke one final sentence.
“Bring me Mabel.”
