Chapter 7 - The Child Everyone Wanted
I read the message twice.
Then I wished I hadn’t.
“Adrian.”
He kept moving.
“What?”
I showed him the screen.
He stopped.
Michael almost collided with us.
“What is it?”
Adrian’s face went blank.
The frightening kind of blank.
“What does his blood mean?”
Michael read the message.
“I don’t know.”
“You’re a Mercer.”
“That doesn’t make me psychic.”
My father groaned from behind us.
We all turned.
Salvatore’s eyes opened.
“Blood.”
His voice was barely audible.
Michael lowered him carefully against the tunnel wall.
“What do you know?”
My father looked at my stomach.
“Maria knew.”
“Dad.”
“The Romano child.”
Adrian crouched.
“What about my son?”
My father laughed weakly.
“Always thought this was about money.”
“What is about money?”
“The Circle.”
Another contraction hit.
I cried out.
Adrian immediately returned to me.
“We’re getting you out.”
“No. Dad first.”
“Elena.”
“Tell me.”
Salvatore fought to stay conscious.
“The Circle wasn’t only financial. Daniel Mercer funded private research.”
Michael’s face hardened.
“What kind?”
“Genetic.”
I stared.
“What?”
“Families like ours keep records. Bloodlines. Illnesses. Compatibility.”
Adrian looked sickened.
“My father?”
“Participated.”
“Why?”
“Because Vittorio’s eldest son died.”
Adrian froze.
I had heard about the baby.
A boy born before Adrian.
Dead within days.
My father continued.
“Rare immune disorder.”
Michael whispered, “They were looking for treatments.”
“Not treatments. Donors.”
My hands went cold.
“Donors for what?”
“Stem cells. Marrow. Experimental transfusions.”
Adrian stood slowly.
“Why would they need my son?”
Salvatore looked directly at him.
“Because someone from the founding families is dying.”
My heart pounded.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
Another contraction came.
Closer.
Stronger.
Adrian lifted me again.
“We’re done talking.”
My father tried to protest.
Michael shook his head.
“He’s right.”
We moved.
At the end of the tunnel, a rusted door opened near the river.
Cold air struck my face.
A vehicle waited beyond the trees.
Black sedan.
Lights off.
Adrian stopped.
“Whose car?”
Michael raised his weapon.
“Not mine.”
The headlights flashed twice.
Then the driver’s door opened.
Vivian stepped out.
I almost laughed from exhaustion.
“Of course.”
She ran toward us.
Then stopped when she saw Michael.
Her face crumpled.
“Michael.”
He stared at his sister.
“You knew?”
“About what?”
“Dad.”
Her expression answered.
“You knew he founded The Circle.”
“I knew he was involved.”
“How long?”
“Two years.”
Michael looked devastated.
“You let me spend six years trying to avenge him.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
He laughed bitterly.
“Everyone loves that sentence tonight.”
Adrian snapped, “Hospital.”
Vivian saw me.
Her face changed.
“What happened?”
“My water broke.”
She opened the rear door immediately.
“I know a private clinic.”
“No,” Adrian said.
She glared at him.
“You know another option?”
“I know everyone connected to us is compromised.”
“This clinic isn’t connected.”
“How?”
“Because I own it.”
Of course she did.
I climbed into the car.
Michael loaded my father beside me.
Adrian sat with me in the back, one arm around my shoulders as another contraction tore through me.
Vivian drove.
Fast.
Too fast.
Michael rode in front.
No one spoke for several minutes.
Then Vivian said, “Thirty-one weeks?”
“Thirty-one and four days.”
“We have neonatal support.”
“How convenient,” Michael said.
She gripped the wheel.
“It was built for women who can’t safely use public hospitals.”
“Or secret blood experiments?”
She flinched.
Good question.
“Nothing like that.”
Adrian looked at me.
“We’re not letting anyone take him.”
My throat tightened.
“Our son.”
“Yes.”
“You still think you get to call him that?”
Pain crossed his face.
“Elena.”
“I’m angry.”
“I know.”
“I’m terrified.”
“I know.”
“I don’t know whether I hate you.”
His eyes held mine.
“I know.”
Another contraction.
I grabbed his hand without thinking.
He let me crush it.
Twenty minutes later, the sedan entered an underground garage beneath what looked like an ordinary medical office.
Doctors were waiting.
Dr. Shaw was among them.
I stared.
“How?”
She ran beside the stretcher.
“Your brother called.”
“Not my brother.”
“Long story?”
“Very.”
My father was taken toward surgery.
I was rushed upstairs.
Monitors.
IV.
Medication.
Questions.
The baby’s heartbeat filled the room.
Fast but steady.
I cried when I heard it.
Adrian stood beside me.
His face changed too.
Dr. Shaw examined me.
“Your water did break, but labor may be stoppable.”
“May?”
“We’ll try to delay delivery as long as it’s safe.”
“What about the drug?”
“We’re testing everything.”
Vivian entered wearing scrubs.
I stiffened.
“Elena, I need to tell you something.”
“Later.”
“No. Now.”
Adrian looked at her.
“What?”
She held out a tablet.
“A request was made through the clinic’s system two hours ago.”
“What request?”
She looked at me.
“For neonatal cord blood collection.”
Adrian went still.
“Standard?”
“No.”
“Who authorized it?”
“My credentials.”
Vivian looked sick.
“I didn’t make the request.”
Michael appeared behind her.
“Then someone has your access.”
“Yes.”
“Can you trace it?”
“Already did.”
The login originated inside Adrian’s corporate headquarters.
His building.
His system.
Adrian looked at the tablet.
“What terminal?”
Vivian swallowed.
“Executive floor.”
“There are six offices.”
“Five.”
His face changed.
Because the sixth had belonged to his father.
Vittorio Romano’s office remained sealed after his death.
No one used it.
Or so Adrian thought.
“Security cameras?”
“Disabled.”
Michael laughed without humor.
“Your fortress is leaking from every wall.”
Adrian ignored him.
“Who currently has physical access?”
“Myself. Carlo. Head of security.”
“Name?”
“Thomas Reed.”
I knew Thomas.
He had protected Adrian since before our marriage.
Quiet.
Professional.
He once sat outside my hospital room for three nights after I lost our first pregnancy.
I felt nauseated.
“Thomas wouldn’t.”
Adrian’s expression was grim.
“I said the same thing about Carlo.”
My phone vibrated.
Everyone stared.
Unknown number again.
This time, no message.
A photograph.
A hospital nursery.
Taken from inside the clinic.
I looked toward the door.
My blood ran cold.
They were already here.
Beneath the picture:
THE BOY BELONGS TO MORE THAN YOU.
Then:
ASK ADRIAN WHY YOUR FIRST BABY REALLY DIED.
I stopped breathing.
Adrian saw my face.
“What?”
I turned the phone toward him.
He read it.
And something in his expression broke.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
“You know.”
His silence destroyed me.
“You know something.”
“Elena.”
“Our first baby.”
He looked toward Dr. Shaw.
Then Vivian.
Michael.
“Everyone out.”
“No.”
I grabbed his wrist.
“Tell me now.”
His eyes filled with something I had almost never seen.
Shame.
“Our daughter wasn’t lost naturally.”
The world stopped.
We had been married three years.
I had been seventeen weeks pregnant.
A girl.
We named her Sofia after the miscarriage because I couldn’t bear the idea that she would disappear without a name.
Doctors told me there had been a placental complication.
No one knew why.
I spent two years blaming my body.
I looked at Adrian.
“What happened to my daughter?”
His voice cracked.
“My father had your prenatal blood tested.”
“Why?”
“Because of the Romano immune disorder.”
My ears rang.
“And?”
“Sofia carried a genetic marker.”
“What marker?”
“One Vittorio believed made her valuable.”
My stomach turned.
“Valuable how?”
“He planned to collect fetal tissue if the pregnancy failed.”
“If?”
Adrian closed his eyes.
I understood.
“No.”
“Elena—”
“Did your father kill my baby?”
“I never found proof.”
“That isn’t what I asked!”
The monitor alarm increased with my pulse.
Dr. Shaw moved toward me.
I held up my hand.
Adrian looked destroyed.
“I believe he caused the miscarriage.”
A sound came out of me that I didn’t recognize.
I slapped him.
Hard.
No one moved.
He didn’t defend himself.
“You knew.”
“I found out afterward.”
“How long afterward?”
“Six months.”
Nine years of marriage.
Six years of knowing.
“You let me believe my body failed her.”
“I was trying to prove—”
I slapped him again.
“No.”
Tears blurred my vision.
“You do not get to hide behind protection anymore.”
He stood there and took it.
“I know.”
“You should have told me.”
“Yes.”
“You should have burned your entire family to the ground.”
“Yes.”
“What did you do?”
His eyes changed.
“I killed my father.”
Silence.
Even Vivian stared at him.
Vittorio Romano had supposedly died of a heart attack four years earlier.
Adrian looked directly at me.
“He confessed enough for me to know what he had done.”
My breath shook.
“So you killed him.”
“Yes.”
“And then kept the secret.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because he told me The Circle would come for the next child.”
My hand went to my belly.
“And now they have.”
“Yes.”
Suddenly the lights went out.
Every monitor switched to battery backup.
Emergency red lights flashed.
A scream sounded from the hallway.
Then gunfire.
Adrian pulled a weapon from beneath his shirt.
Michael did the same.
Vivian locked the door.
Dr. Shaw moved beside my bed.
Adrian looked at me.
“No one takes our son.”
I stared at the man who had betrayed me, lied to me, avenged our daughter, and hidden the truth so deeply I no longer knew which version of him was real.
Then something moved beneath my gown.
Dr. Shaw checked.
Her face changed.
“What?”
“Elena.”
“What?”
“You’re fully dilated.”
“No.”
Another contraction ripped through me.
She looked toward the locked door while gunfire echoed outside.
May you like
Then back at me.
“This baby is coming now.”
