Chapter 3 - My Mother Lied
I wanted to slap him.
Instead, I laughed.
It came out sharp and breathless.
“You’re crazy.”
“I wish I were.”
“My father was an insurance adjuster.”
“No. That was the story they gave you.”
“My mother would have told me.”
“Your mother signed a confidentiality agreement.”
“Stop.”
“She was paid.”
“Stop.”
“After Daniel vanished, she took money from—”
“STOP!”
Sophie startled and began to cry.
Instantly, every bit of anger inside me collapsed into guilt.
I rocked her carefully.
“I’m sorry, baby.”
Luka looked away.
The service corridor ended at a locked metal door.
He punched a code into a keypad.
The light turned green.
“How do you know that code?”
“I paid for it.”
Of course he did.
We emerged inside an underground loading area.
A black SUV waited with its engine running.
A gray-haired woman stood beside it.
The moment she saw me, she covered her mouth.
“Oh, God.”
I knew that voice.
I stared.
“Mom?”
Linda Bennett looked twenty years older than she had the last time I saw her.
“What are you doing here?”
She rushed toward me.
I stepped back.
“Claire—”
“Did you know?”
Her face broke.
That was my answer.
“You knew.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“By lying to me for nineteen years?”
“Twenty-five.”
My breath caught.
Luka shut the loading door behind us.
My mother looked at him.
“You promised you wouldn’t tell her yet.”
“Men came onto the maternity floor.”
“What?”
“They know Sophie exists.”
Mom went pale.
She looked at my daughter like she was seeing a ghost.
“Oh no.”
I felt something break inside me.
“Somebody better start talking.”
We got into the SUV.
The driver pulled away.
Mom sat across from me.
Luka beside her.
Sophie slept between my arms, untouched by the nightmare surrounding her.
Mom wiped her eyes.
“Your father worked for Moretti Biomedical.”
I stared at Luka.
“Your family owns it?”
“Owned part of it.”
Mom continued.
“Daniel was a systems analyst. He discovered a hidden database.”
“M-17.”
She nodded.
“It tracked fertility patients. Embryos. Genetic markers. Pregnancies.”
“Why?”
“Because a research team believed they could identify certain inherited resistance traits.”
“To what?”
Luka answered.
“A rare neurological disease.”
I frowned.
“So they were curing people?”
“No,” Mom whispered.
“They were selecting them.”
Cold spread through me.
“They manipulated IVF samples?”
“Some.”
“I wasn’t IVF.”
Mom looked at the floor.
“No.”
My heart hammered.
“Then how am I connected?”
She squeezed her hands together.
“Your father found out the trial had expanded.”
“To what?”
“Pregnant women.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
“Your prenatal blood samples were taken without consent.”
“My samples?”
“You were tested before you were born.”
I stared at her.
Then suddenly understood.
“M-17A.”
She nodded.
“You carried one of the strongest markers they had ever found.”
“For disease resistance?”
“Yes.”
“So what does Sophie have to do with it?”
Luka answered.
“If she inherited it, her blood could be worth billions to the company that controls the patent.”
I nearly laughed again.
“You can’t patent my daughter.”
“No,” Luka said.
“But people can patent therapies developed from biological material.”
Mom leaned closer.
“Your father tried to expose everything.”
“And they killed him.”
She began to cry.
“I don’t know.”
“You told me he died instantly.”
“I was told if I didn’t repeat the story, they would come for you.”
I looked out the window.
Buildings flashed past.
Twenty-five years of my life suddenly felt fake.
Then my phone buzzed.
A text message.
From Ryan.
I’m sorry. They lied to me.
Another message arrived.
A photograph.
My house.
The front door was open.
A third message.
They’re looking for the folder Daniel hid.
I looked at Mom.
“What folder?”
She froze.
Luka leaned forward.
“Linda?”
Mom closed her eyes.
“The one I hid in Claire’s nursery wall.”
My blood turned to ice.
Because three weeks earlier, Ryan had torn open that exact wall.
May you like
He told me he was fixing a leak.
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