CHAPTER 6 THE BABY WITH NO NAME
Marcus couldn't take his eyes off the adoption file.
The words blurred together.
UNKNOWN MALE.
Those two words echoed louder than every explosion, every business deal, every headline that had ever defined his life.
Unknown.
Not Marcus Thorne.
Not the heir to the Thorne empire.
Just...
Unknown.
Richard quietly closed the laptop.
"This document could be forged."
Marcus looked at him.
"You don't believe that."
Richard didn't answer.
Because he had already checked the digital signatures.
The court seal.
The archival encryption.
Every authentication matched.
If someone had forged it...
They had rewritten government history itself.
Marcus leaned heavily against the wall.
"My mother..."
Richard remained silent.
"She used to tell me I looked exactly like my father."
A bitter smile crossed Marcus's face.
"I spent my whole childhood trying to become him."
He looked toward Khloe's ICU room.
"And now you're telling me he wasn't even my father?"
Richard spoke carefully.
"I'm telling you..."
"...the man who raised you adopted you."
"That's different."
Marcus closed his eyes.
Nothing felt different.
Everything felt broken.
Across the hall...
Inside her ICU room...
Khloe hadn't slept.
She lay staring at the ceiling.
The surgery had saved her.
The baby had survived.
Yet peace refused to come.
A soft knock.
Dr. Emily Carter entered.
"How are you feeling?"
Khloe forced a weak smile.
"I've been better."
The doctor hesitated.
"There is something we need to discuss."
Khloe immediately sensed it.
"The baby?"
"No."
Dr. Carter sat beside the bed.
"It's about the object we removed."
Khloe's fingers tightened around the blanket.
"What object?"
"The small device beneath your ribs."
Confusion spread across Khloe's face.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
Dr. Carter studied her expression carefully.
No hesitation.
No acting.
She genuinely looked surprised.
"You've never had surgery there?"
"No."
"No experimental treatment?"
"No."
"No implant of any kind?"
Khloe slowly shook her head.
"I've never even broken a bone."
Dr. Carter left the room more confused than when she'd entered.
If Khloe truly knew nothing...
Who had placed the object inside her?
And when?
Meanwhile...
Richard requested the original paper adoption records from the national archive.
Five minutes later...
A response arrived.
FILE NOT FOUND.
He frowned.
He searched again.
Nothing.
The digital copy existed.
The physical file had disappeared.
Someone had erased the paper trail.
Elsewhere in the hospital...
Isabella Rossi sat motionless.
The lawyer's warning replayed endlessly inside her head.
You have become expendable.
She knew exactly what that meant.
People who became liabilities...
Never survived long.
Suddenly...
The lights flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then the entire room went dark.
Emergency generators activated seconds later.
When the lights returned...
One security guard lay unconscious outside the door.
The other was gone.
Isabella slowly stood.
The door creaked open by itself.
A man's voice emerged from the darkness.
"You have one minute."
She couldn't see his face.
Only a silhouette.
"I followed every instruction."
"You failed."
"They found the chip."
"That wasn't my fault."
Silence.
Then...
A suppressed gunshot.
Pfft.
The sound was almost gentle.
The bullet shattered the light fixture above Isabella's head.
Glass rained across the floor.
She screamed.
The man never moved.
"The next one won't miss."
He disappeared into the darkness.
Leaving Isabella trembling.
For the first time in years...
She understood she wasn't part of the conspiracy.
She was merely disposable.
At exactly 2:13 a.m...
The maternity ward erupted into alarms.
Nurses rushed from every direction.
"What happened?"
"Room Seven!"
"Call security!"
Marcus and Richard sprinted toward the neonatal intensive care unit.
Doctors crowded around an empty incubator.
Marcus's blood turned to ice.
"Where's my daughter?"
No one answered.
One nurse finally whispered,
"She was here..."
"...thirty seconds ago."
The incubator was empty.
Blankets still warm.
Monitors still running.
No broken windows.
No forced doors.
The newborn had vanished.
Marcus roared,
"LOCK THE HOSPITAL!"
Every exit slammed shut.
Security flooded every floor.
Richard pulled surveillance footage.
Camera One.
Hallway clear.
Camera Two.
No one entered.
Camera Three.
No movement.
Impossible.
The baby couldn't simply disappear.
Then Richard noticed something.
Frame by frame...
One camera skipped.
Not thirty-seven seconds.
Exactly...
Eight seconds.
He zoomed in.
The timestamp remained continuous.
But eight frames had been replaced with duplicates from earlier footage.
Someone had edited the live surveillance feed.
While the kidnapping was happening.
Richard whispered,
"They're inside our system again."
Twenty minutes later...
Security finally found something.
A nurse's ID badge.
Discarded near the service elevator.
Name:
LISA MORGAN.
Richard immediately recognized it.
"The woman with the receiver."
Marcus clenched his fists.
"Find her."
Before anyone could move...
A tiny cry echoed through the ventilation system.
Everyone froze.
A baby.
Very faint.
But unmistakable.
Marcus looked upward.
"The ducts."
Security officers rushed toward the maintenance access.
Richard grabbed a floor blueprint.
The ventilation shaft extended above the neonatal unit...
Then split into three directions.
North Wing.
Emergency Department.
Rooftop helipad.
Marcus didn't hesitate.
"You take north."
"I'll check the roof."
They separated immediately.
Marcus burst through the rooftop access door.
Rain hammered the concrete.
A helicopter sat with spinning rotors.
Preparing for takeoff.
A man in black tactical clothing carried a small white bundle toward the aircraft.
Marcus's daughter.
"STOP!"
The man turned.
For just one second...
Marcus saw his face.
He wasn't a stranger.
He had seen that face before.
Years ago.
In an old family photograph...
Standing beside Edward Thorne.
Marcus's adoptive father.
The man smiled.
Raised one hand.
Then spoke words Marcus would never forget.
"Your father died protecting her."
Before Marcus could react...
The helicopter lifted into the storm.
Disappearing into the darkness...
May you like
With his newborn daughter.
END OF CHAPTER 6
