Chapter 10 - THE WOMAN THEY WERE ALL AFRAID OF
The darkness lasted only seconds.
But it felt endless.
Then emergency lights flickered on.
Red.
Cold.
Terrifying.
The three incubator alarms screamed simultaneously.
I ran toward my babies.
“No!”
Adrian shouted:
“Get the emergency power!”
Doctors rushed into the room.
The machines had stopped responding.
Grace's oxygen dropped.
Lucas's heart rate spiked.
Noah began struggling to breathe.
I grabbed the side of Grace's incubator.
“Please.”
Adrian turned toward the control panel.
“Can you restart it?”
The technician shook his head.
“The system is locked.”
Thomas smiled.
“Exactly.”
Adrian looked at him.
“What did you do?”
Thomas raised his phone.
“The same thing I did at the hospital.”
He tapped the screen.
The alarms grew louder.
I turned toward him.
“Stop!”
He looked at me.
“Come with me.”
“What?”
“You want your children alive?”
I froze.
“Yes.”
“Then come with me.”
Adrian stepped between us.
“No.”
Thomas pointed the gun.
“Move.”
Adrian didn't.
Thomas fired.
The bullet struck the wall inches from Adrian's head.
Security returned fire.
Thomas disappeared through a side door.
Adrian turned to me.
“Stay here.”
“No.”
“Claire.”
“My children.”
He looked at the incubators.
Then at me.
“Then we go together.”
We followed Thomas through the underground facility.
The corridor seemed endless.
Finally, we reached a massive steel door.
Thomas stood on the other side.
He wasn't running anymore.
He was waiting.
“Open it,” Adrian ordered.
Thomas smiled.
“Claire has to.”
I looked at the panel.
There was a hand scanner.
Adrian looked at me.
“Try it.”
I placed my hand against it.
The machine scanned my palm.
Then my fingerprint.
A green light appeared.
The door opened.
Inside was a laboratory unlike anything I'd ever seen.
At its center was a single glass chamber.
Inside stood an elderly woman.
Alive.
Connected to machines.
I stopped breathing.
“Mom?”
The woman opened her eyes.
My mother.
Alive.
After twenty-eight years.
She looked directly at me.
“Claire.”
My legs nearly collapsed.
“No.”
She smiled weakly.
“My baby.”
I began crying.
“You're alive.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Because your father saved me.”
I looked at Adrian.
Then back at her.
“What happened?”
She looked toward Thomas.
“He knows.”
Thomas entered.
“My father wanted to continue the research.”
My mother shook her head.
“Your father wanted to destroy it.”
“Why didn't he?”
“He couldn't.”
“Why?”
She looked at me.
“Because they already had you.”
My heart broke.
“What did they do to me?”
“Nothing.”
She reached toward the glass.
“Not then.”
I stepped closer.
“What does that mean?”
“They studied you.”
My stomach turned.
“After I was born?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Six months.”
I closed my eyes.
“Did I know?”
“No.”
“Did Dad know?”
“He knew everything.”
“Why didn't he tell me?”
“Because he wanted you to have a normal life.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Normal.”
My mother cried.
“I am sorry.”
I pressed my hand against the glass.
“Why did Ethan marry me?”
She looked at Thomas.
Then Adrian.
Then me.
“Because the Mercers knew you were the only person who could complete the system.”
“What system?”
“The neonatal technology.”
My mother's voice weakened.
“Your father discovered that the system could stabilize premature infants—but only if the biological pattern was compatible.”
“And I am?”
“Yes.”
“Then my babies…”
She nodded.
“Your triplets inherited the marker.”
I looked toward the door.
“The project wanted them.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To perfect the technology.”
I shook my head.
“They were going to experiment on my children.”
“Yes.”
I turned toward Thomas.
“You're a monster.”
Thomas smiled.
“Perhaps.”
Adrian stepped forward.
“But it's over.”
Thomas looked at him.
“No.”
He raised his phone.
“It's just beginning.”
Suddenly every screen in the laboratory activated.
Hundreds of files appeared.
Names.
Dates.
Medical records.
Hospitals.
Thousands of children.
My blood ran cold.
“How many?”
My mother closed her eyes.
“Thousands.”
Thomas smiled.
“The project isn't about your children.”
He looked directly at me.
“It's about every premature child in America.”
Silence.
Adrian stared at the screens.
“This is bigger than Mercer Holdings.”
Thomas nodded.
“Much bigger.”
“Who funds it?”
Thomas smiled.
“People you will never meet.”
“Who?”
“Governments.”
“Which ones?”
Thomas didn't answer.
Instead, he looked at me.
“Your father tried to expose them.”
“What happened to him?”
My mother began crying.
“He was murdered.”
I froze.
“You told me he died in an accident.”
“I lied.”
“Why?”
“Because they threatened you.”
I looked at Adrian.
He was staring at the files.
Then his phone rang.
He answered.
“Blackwood.”
A voice spoke.
Adrian's expression changed.
He looked at me.
“What?”
“It's your security team?”
He nodded.
“They found something.”
“What?”
He put the call on speaker.
A man's voice said:
“Sir, we've discovered the identity of the person who ordered the original project.”
My mother closed her eyes.
Thomas smiled.
I felt a terrible sense of dread.
“Who?” Adrian asked.
The voice answered:
“Claire Bennett's father.”
I stared.
“No.”
The man continued.
“Daniel Bennett wasn't trying to destroy Project Three.”
My mother whispered:
“Claire…”
The voice finished:
“He created it.”
I stepped backward.
Everything I believed about my father collapsed.
My mother began sobbing.
“Your father created the first prototype.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
“He created it to save premature babies.”
“Then why?”
“Because someone changed it.”
“Who?”
My mother looked at Thomas.
Thomas slowly lowered his weapon.
“My father.”
I looked at Adrian.
The truth was finally beginning to emerge.
My father had created the technology to save babies.
The Mercer family had turned it into something monstrous.
And Ethan had married me because he was trapped between the people who created the project and the woman he loved.
But there was still one question.
Why had my babies been born as triplets?
Why had their compatibility reached nearly one hundred percent?
And why had my father written:
If they ever try to use my daughter, destroy the research.
Then my mother's expression suddenly changed.
She looked at my stomach.
At the three incubators.
And whispered:
“Claire…”
“What?”
“There is something I never told you.”
My heart stopped.
“What?”
She stared at me.
“Your father didn't believe you would have triplets.”
“Why?”
“Because he knew you couldn't.”
I frowned.
“What are you saying?”
She began crying.
“The doctors told you there were three babies.”
“Yes.”
“But your father knew there was something different.”
“What?”
My mother whispered:
“Triplet pregnancies were the only pregnancies Project Three could not survive.”
I stared at her.
“Then how are my babies alive?”
She looked toward the incubators.
“Because they aren't the first.”
My blood froze.
“What?”
My mother closed her eyes.
“They are the second set.”
I couldn't breathe.
“The second set of what?”
She looked directly at me.
“Your first three babies were taken from you before you even knew you were pregnant.”
The room went silent.
Adrian stared at her.
Thomas stopped smiling.
And somewhere behind us, Ethan whispered:
“That's impossible.”
My mother looked at him.
“No.”
Her voice trembled.
“It's the reason your father spent his entire life trying to destroy Project Three.”
Then every light in the laboratory turned red.
A warning appeared across the main screen:
SUBJECTS 1, 2, AND 3 — ORIGINAL LOCATION FOUND.
And beneath it was an address.
Not in New York.
Not in Boston.
Not in Los Angeles.
It was a location I recognized immediately.
My childhood home.
The house where my father had supposedly died.
I looked at Adrian.
“We have to go.”
He nodded.
Ethan picked up his weapon.
“I’m coming.”
I stared at him.
“You don't get to protect me anymore.”
He looked at me.
“I know.”
Then he lowered his weapon.
“But I can help you bring our children home.”
For the first time, I didn't know whether to trust him.
But there was one thing I knew.
My story had never begun the night Ethan threw me out.
It had begun twenty-eight years earlier.
The night I was born.
And now, somewhere inside the house where my father had supposedly died, someone was waiting with the truth about my first three children.
I looked at Adrian.
“Let's finish this.”
He nodded.
Then we walked into the darkness together.
Behind us, the screen continued flashing one final message:
May you like
PROJECT THREE WAS NEVER ABOUT THE TRIPLETS.
IT WAS ABOUT CLAIRE.
