Chapter 9 - The Woman Behind Halcyon
Emergency lights flickered on.
“Who brought them?”
I grabbed Gabriel’s jacket.
“You said you let Sofia go!”
“I did.”
“Then why are my children here?”
Gabriel pushed me away and opened a security screen.
The feed froze.
Then switched.
Sofia’s SUV sat outside.
Doors open.
Empty.
No Sofia.
No boys.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
“Find them!”
Men rushed through corridors.
David grabbed my hand.
I jerked away.
“Don’t touch me.”
“Cat.”
“Not now.”
Alessandro stood beside Gabriel.
“Who controls your security?”
“I do.”
“Apparently not.”
Gabriel glared.
“I’ve been rebuilding Halcyon from the inside for four years.”
“By murdering people?”
“By cutting out the people who murdered our family.”
“You burned Catherine’s apartment.”
“No.”
“You sent shooters to Richmond.”
“No.”
“Someone did.”
Gabriel looked at the screens.
“Yes.”
For the first time, he looked afraid.
“That’s the problem.”
A woman’s voice came through the building speakers.
“Gabriel.”
His face went white.
Alessandro noticed.
“Who is that?”
Gabriel whispered one name.
“Dr. Mercer.”
Dr. Evelyn Mercer appeared on the main screen.
Silver hair.
Elegant suit.
Maybe sixty.
She looked like someone’s wealthy grandmother.
Her smile made my skin crawl.
“Thank you for gathering everyone.”
Gabriel stepped toward the monitor.
“You’re dead.”
“So were you.”
Alessandro looked at him.
“Nice family habit.”
Mercer smiled.
“Lazarus teaches us not to trust funerals.”
I understood instantly.
She had staged her death too.
“Where are the boys?” I shouted.
Mercer’s eyes moved to me.
“Catherine Winters.”
“WHERE ARE THEY?”
“Safe.”
“I will kill you.”
“Many mothers say that.”
David stepped forward.
“Evelyn.”
Her expression softened.
“David. You’ve been such a disappointment.”
“Release them.”
“You know what I need.”
“No.”
“Then why are you surprised?”
A door opened behind us.
Two armed men entered.
They weren’t Gabriel’s.
Mercenaries.
Dr. Mercer had infiltrated the facility long before we arrived.
Gabriel swore.
“How many?”
Mercer smiled.
“Enough.”
The screen switched.
Logan and Daniel sat inside a glass room.
Sofia was with them.
Her hands were tied.
I ran toward the screen.
“Logan!”
He couldn’t hear me.
Daniel was crying.
Logan gave him Captain Bear.
My throat closed.
Even terrified, he was comforting someone else.
“Where are they?”
Mercer answered.
“Sublevel three.”
Gabriel looked at her.
“That level was sealed.”
“By you.”
She smiled.
“Not by me.”
Alessandro whispered to Gabriel.
“Tell me the layout.”
Mercer heard him.
“Please don’t be boring, Alessandro.”
He looked at the camera.
“Who are you?”
“Your brother knows.”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened.
“She founded Lazarus.”
Dr. Chen’s earlier words came back to me.
Military trials.
Illegal experiments.
Generational effects.
Mercer nodded.
“And Gabriel was one of my most promising subjects.”
Alessandro looked at his brother.
“You worked for her?”
“Not willingly.”
“Eventually willingly.”
Mercer’s voice was almost affectionate.
“That’s the tragedy of idealists. Give them enough pain and they become practical.”
Gabriel ignored her.
“What do you want?”
“One complete blood draw from each child.”
“No,” I said.
Mercer continued.
“Twenty milliliters.”
“No.”
“After that, they leave.”
“Liar.”
“Mrs. Winters, I have waited twenty-seven years for proof that Lazarus adaptation can be inherited.”
“You don’t get my children.”
She smiled.
“Your children?”
The cruelty was deliberate.
“One is biologically yours. One is emotionally yours. Fascinating distinction.”
I moved toward the camera.
“There is no distinction.”
For the first time, her smile faded.
“Then you understand why sacrifice is necessary.”
“No.”
“You’d sacrifice yourself for either.”
“Yes.”
“Exactly.”
I realized what she meant too late.
David shouted.
“Catherine, no.”
Mercer spoke calmly.
“Come to sublevel three alone, and I will release Sofia and the boys.”
“No,” Alessandro said.
I looked at him.
“She wants me.”
“She wants you because she thinks you’ll cooperate.”
“She’s right.”
“Catherine.”
David stepped in front of me.
“I’ll go.”
“You already went.”
He flinched.
“You disappeared. You lied. You stole our child. You made decisions for me for years.”
Tears filled my eyes.
“This one is mine.”
I walked toward the elevator.
Alessandro blocked me.
“I cannot allow it.”
“You cannot stop it.”
“Yes, I can.”
I looked at him.
“Logan is your nephew.”
His face changed.
“Daniel is David’s son.”
“Yes.”
“If I don’t go, what happens?”
He had no answer.
I pressed the elevator button.
David stepped beside me.
“You’re not going alone.”
Mercer’s voice sounded.
“I said alone.”
David stared at the camera.
“Then shoot me.”
Silence.
He smiled bitterly.
“You’ve wanted to for two years.”
Mercer finally said, “David remains upstairs.”
The elevator opened.
I stepped inside.
Alessandro caught my hand.
I looked back.
His eyes were dark.
“Do what she asks until I get there.”
“You just told me not to go.”
“I changed my mind.”
“Can people change?”
He remembered our earlier conversation.
His mouth tightened.
“I’m deciding.”
The doors closed.
Sublevel three smelled like antiseptic.
White walls.
Glass rooms.
Medical equipment.
A nightmare pretending to be a clinic.
Mercer waited at the end of the hallway.
In person.
No guards beside her.
“Where are my children?”
She pointed.
A glass chamber.
Logan saw me.
“Mommy!”
I ran to the door.
Locked.
He pressed his hands against the glass.
Daniel did the same.
Sofia sat behind them, wrists bound.
“Open it.”
Mercer lifted a syringe.
“After.”
“What is that?”
“Sedative.”
“No.”
“For you.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t need the children’s cooperation if I have yours.”
My blood went cold.
She wasn’t planning a simple blood draw.
“What do you want from me?”
“Bone marrow.”
“Why?”
“Because both boys share one biological variable.”
I stared.
“What variable?”
“You.”
“That doesn’t make sense. Logan isn’t biologically mine.”
Mercer smiled.
“Isn’t he?”
Everything stopped.
“No.”
“David switched identification bands.”
“I know.”
“He did not switch embryos.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
Mercer walked toward the glass.
“Elena Marquez was not Gabriel’s child’s biological mother.”
My skin turned cold.
“Then who was?”
Mercer looked at me.
“You.”
I laughed.
“No.”
“You underwent fertility treatment three months before becoming pregnant.”
“I had blood tests.”
“And an egg retrieval you were told failed.”
I remembered.
A clinic.
David saying the insurance required testing.
A minor procedure.
They told me no viable eggs were collected.
My knees weakened.
“No.”
“Halcyon harvested two viable oocytes.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“One was fertilized with David’s genetic material.”
Daniel.
“The other with Gabriel Romano’s.”
Logan.
My hand went to the glass.
“No.”
Mercer smiled.
“You are the biological mother of both boys.”
Logan pressed his tiny palm against mine from the other side.
The world disappeared.
Both mine.
Both.
Mercer lifted the syringe.
“And that, Catherine, is why you were always the most valuable asset.”
A gunshot echoed upstairs.
Mercer turned.
Another.
Then alarms.
She swore.
I grabbed her wrist.
The syringe fell.
She struck me across the face.
I hit the floor.
She reached for a pistol beneath her coat.
The glass door exploded inward.
Alessandro came through first.
Blood covered his shirt again.
Behind him, David and Gabriel fired at Mercer’s guards.
Mercer pointed her weapon at Logan.
I lunged.
The gun went off.
Pain tore through my side.
I collapsed.
“CATHERINE!”
David caught me.
Alessandro fired once.
Mercer dropped.
Everything became noise.
Logan screaming.
Daniel crying.
David holding pressure against my side.
“No, no, no.”
I looked at him.
“You better not disappear again.”
He laughed through tears.
“I won’t.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
My vision darkened.
Behind him, Gabriel opened the glass room.
Both boys ran toward me.
“Mommy!”
Two voices.
Not one.
May you like
Two.
Then everything went black.
