Chapter 5 - THE MISSING THREE PAGES
Charles disconnected before anyone could answer.
For several seconds, nobody moved.
My mother stared at the silent phone.
Luka looked at the security feed.
I looked at my daughter.
His granddaughter.
That was what Charles had called her.
Not Matteo Moretti’s daughter.
Not Grace’s baby.
His granddaughter.
The word crawled through my mind like poison.
“Explain.”
My mother turned toward me.
“Grace—”
“No.”
I stepped closer.
“You do not get another minute of deciding what I can handle.”
Her face tightened.
“Charles lies.”
“He sounded very specific.”
“He knew you would hear him.”
“So?”
“So he wanted to destabilize you.”
I laughed once.
“He doesn’t need to work that hard.”
Luka checked the hallway.
“Two minutes.”
I looked at him.
“You know what he meant?”
“No.”
That answer came cleanly.
I believed him.
My mother grabbed the drives.
“Move first.”
“I’m done moving without answers.”
Luka looked at me.
“Grace.”
“I have spent my entire life being moved.”
My voice shook.
“Moved away from my mother.”
“Moved toward Evan.”
“Moved into fertility treatment.”
“Moved out of the hospital.”
“Moved here.”
I held Ivy against my chest.
“I am done.”
Luka stared at me.
Then nodded once.
“Thirty seconds.”
My mother closed her eyes.
“Charles had another son.”
I frowned.
“Evan is an only child.”
“Legally.”
My stomach tightened.
“What does that mean?”
“Years before Evan was born, Charles participated in the M-series donor program himself.”
I stared.
“He donated?”
“He was supposed to be a client.”
“Not a donor?”
“Both.”
The word hit me.
My mother continued quickly.
“There was a private arrangement with Elaine Mercer.”
Sloane’s mother.
“What arrangement?”
“Elaine wanted a child.”
My brain moved faster than I wanted it to.
“Sloane.”
My mother looked at me.
“Yes.”
The floor seemed to drop.
“Sloane is Charles’s daughter.”
“Yes.”
My mouth opened.
No words came.
My husband’s mistress was his half-sister.
My stomach turned violently.
“They know?”
“Charles knows.”
“Evan?”
“I don’t know.”
“Sloane?”
“I don’t know.”
The horror on Luka’s face told me he had not known.
I pressed a hand to my mouth.
“Then he called Ivy his granddaughter because…”
My mother answered.
“Because he sees any child created inside his program as belonging to him.”
The relief was ugly.
But real.
Not literal biological granddaughter through the donor.
A possessive claim.
A monster’s language.
Luka grabbed the archive door.
“Time.”
We moved.
My mother opened a hidden exit behind the shelving.
A narrow stairwell dropped two floors.
She led.
I followed.
Luka covered behind us.
Footsteps entered Room 417 seconds after we left.
A man shouted.
Another voice said, “They used the service passage.”
We hurried downward.
My stitches burned.
I nearly fell once.
Luka caught my elbow.
“Slow.”
“I can’t.”
“You fall, we all stop.”
He was right.
I hated him for being right so often.
At the second floor, Marianne opened another hidden panel.
We entered an old laundry chute corridor.
At the far end, daylight showed through a rusted door.
Then a gunshot cracked above us.
I froze.
Ivy screamed.
Luka’s face hardened.
“Keep moving.”
Another shot.
Then Charles’s voice echoed faintly.
“Alive!”
My mother whispered.
“He wants us alive.”
Luka’s jaw flexed.
“For now.”
We escaped through an overgrown courtyard.
A car waited behind the building.
Not ours.
My mother tossed Luka the keys.
He caught them.
“Where?”
“The Vale annex.”
He stared.
“You said it was empty.”
“It is.”
“That means Charles knows it.”
“Not the sublevel.”
Luka looked at me.
“Your family really liked hidden rooms.”
I almost laughed.
Almost.
We drove west.
Nobody spoke for nearly twenty minutes.
Ivy finally settled.
My mother sat beside me in the back seat.
She did not touch me.
I appreciated that.
After a while, she whispered.
“May I look at her?”
I looked down at Ivy.
Then shifted slightly.
My mother leaned closer.
Tears filled her eyes.
“She has your nose.”
“So did Dad.”
Marianne smiled.
“Yes.”
We were silent.
Then she said the name.
“Matteo had blue eyes.”
I looked at her.
“You knew him.”
“Yes.”
“How well?”
“Enough to know he would be furious.”
“At what?”
“At being used.”
The sadness in her voice was personal.
“How did he die?”
Luka’s hands tightened on the wheel.
My mother looked forward.
I knew I had crossed something.
But Luka answered.
“Car accident.”
I waited.
“Was it?”
He looked at the mirror.
“That is one of the questions we’re still proving.”
Of course.
Another death.
Another uncertain truth.
I stared out the window.
“How many people around M-17 died conveniently?”
My mother answered.
“At least nine.”
I closed my eyes.
“Jesus.”
“Some may have been natural.”
“Do you believe that?”
“No.”
We reached the city outskirts.
The Vale annex turned out to be an old records warehouse my father had once used for his accounting firm.
I remembered visiting as a child.
Rows of boxes.
Dust.
A vending machine that always ate quarters.
The building looked abandoned.
Luka parked inside.
Marianne closed the metal door.
Then walked toward the back.
She moved a cabinet.
Behind it was a keypad.
“Another room.”
She looked at me.
“Your father became cautious.”
“Paranoid.”
“He had reason.”
The keypad accepted the brass key code.
A panel opened.
Stairs descended.
We went underground.
The room below was small.
Dry.
A table.
Two monitors.
An old safe.
My mother entered a code.
The safe opened.
Inside were three folders.
She handed me the first.
“Your fertility records.”
My breath stopped.
I opened it.
Every appointment.
Every blood draw.
Every injection.
But there were forms I had never seen.
One page read:
PATIENT: GRACE VALE HOLLOWAY
PARTNER: EVAN HOLLOWAY
ASSISTED CONCEPTION PROTOCOL
Below it:
INTENDED GENETIC PATERNITY SOURCE: EH-02
Then someone had crossed it out.
Handwritten beside it:
SUBSTITUTE M-17 / AUTHORIZATION C.H.
I stared.
“C.H.”
My mother’s voice was grim.
“Charles Holloway.”
I looked at Luka.
His face was stone.
I kept reading.
There were three pages missing from the numbered sequence.
Page 12.
Page 13.
Page 14.
“What are the missing pages?”
Marianne opened the second folder.
“Those.”
Photocopies.
I read page 12.
Evan’s infertility diagnosis.
Confirmed azoospermia.
Dated eleven years earlier.
Page 13.
A legal consultation.
Patient spouse has not been informed.
My vision blurred.
I looked at Evan’s signature.
He had acknowledged it.
He had hidden it.
Page 14.
The donor substitution authorization.
Signed electronically.
Evan Holloway.
I stopped breathing.
He had not merely known there was a donor.
He had approved the replacement.
I read the line again.
I authorize the clinic to utilize designated genetic source M-17 in place of partner sample EH-02.
The date was seven months before Ivy’s birth.
The day of my procedure.
I felt nothing.
Nothing at all.
Then the numbness split.
I grabbed the folder and threw it across the room.
Pages scattered.
My mother flinched.
Luka said nothing.
“He chose him.”
My voice sounded far away.
“He chose Matteo.”
Marianne looked at the form.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“We don’t know.”
“Of course you don’t.”
I started pacing.
Every step hurt.
I didn’t care.
“He told me it was his sample.”
My throat closed.
“He held my hand.”
I laughed brokenly.
“He kissed me before they took me in.”
My mother’s eyes filled.
“Grace.”
“He told me we were making our baby.”
The words shattered.
I covered my mouth.
Ivy began crying.
I stopped instantly.
I took her into my arms.
“I’m sorry.”
I whispered into her hair.
“I’m sorry.”
Not to her for existing.
Never that.
For the room.
For the fear.
For the world she had entered.
Luka turned away.
Giving me privacy.
My mother stood in the corner with tears running silently down her face.
After several minutes, Ivy settled.
I looked at the form again.
“Why M-17?”
My mother shook her head.
“That is the missing motive.”
I looked toward the third folder.
“What is that?”
She handed it to Luka instead.
He opened it.
His face changed.
“What?”
He removed a photograph.
A younger man.
Dark hair.
Sharp smile.
Blue eyes.
I knew before anyone said it.
“Matteo.”
Luka nodded.
My daughter’s biological father.
A dead man I had never met.
My body reacted strangely.
Not grief.
How could I grieve someone I did not know?
But there was a weight to it.
A human being had been turned into a code.
M-17.
A sample.
A transfer.
A legal authorization.
His body used after death.
My body used without truth.
Our daughter created in the middle of other people’s plans.
Luka handed me the photo.
I stared at Matteo.
“He looks like you.”
“People said that.”
“He looks kinder.”
Luka almost smiled.
“He was.”
I glanced at Ivy.
“Did he want children?”
Luka’s face went still.
“Yes.”
That hurt.
“He was engaged.”
“What happened?”
“She died two years before he did.”
I looked at him.
“I’m sorry.”
Luka nodded once.
Then he opened the folder farther.
Inside was Matteo’s cryogenic directive.
The one Luka had shown at the hospital.
I read it.
All reproductive material is to be destroyed immediately upon my death.
Not stored.
Not transferred.
Not used.
Destroyed.
My throat tightened.
“He was clear.”
“Yes.”
“Then how did they keep it?”
My mother answered.
“Because the M-17 inventory was hidden from normal medical records.”
I looked at the authorization again.
Charles’s initials.
Evan’s signature.
Sloane’s treatment notes.
“They planned this.”
“Yes.”
“But why?”
A computer beeped.
Luka turned.
One of the old monitors had activated.
A message appeared.
REMOTE ACCESS ATTEMPT.
My mother’s face changed.
“No.”
Luka unplugged the network cable.
Too late.
Another message.
DATA EXTRACTION COMPLETE.
“What did they get?”
Marianne rushed to the keyboard.
The screen listed one file.
TRUST_M17.PDF
She stopped breathing.
I looked at her.
“What is that?”
She stared at the monitor.
Then at Ivy.
“Oh, God.”
“Mom.”
It was the first time I had called her that.
Neither of us noticed until later.
“What is it?”
She opened a paper file.
Her hands shook.
“Matteo Moretti had a trust.”
“I know.”
“Luka told me about the voting shares.”
“That’s only part of it.”
Luka looked at her.
“What part?”
Marianne swallowed.
“When Matteo died, the Moretti family challenged Charles over control of a biotech patent.”
Luka’s expression hardened.
“The Helix-9 process.”
“Yes.”
“What does that have to do with Grace?”
Marianne looked at me.
“Your father audited the settlement.”
I stared.
“And?”
“He discovered Charles had falsified a transfer.”
“What transfer?”
“Matteo’s trust assets.”
Luka stepped closer.
“What are you saying?”
“Charles never legally acquired them.”
Silence.
My mother continued.
“The shares, patents, and licensing rights remained in Matteo’s estate.”
My heart pounded.
“And now?”
Her eyes moved to Ivy.
“Now they belong to his biological descendant.”
The room went still.
I looked at my newborn daughter.
“How much?”
Luka’s face told me before Marianne answered.
“Depending on current licensing…”
She inhaled.
“Between eight hundred million and 1.2 billion dollars.”
I nearly laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because it was absurd.
I had left the hospital believing I had nowhere to go.
Now my daughter might be worth more on paper than every person chasing us combined.
I held her tighter.
“That’s why.”
Luka’s voice was cold.
“Yes.”
“Charles needed Matteo’s child.”
“Yes.”
“But why me?”
Marianne looked at the wedding ring.
“Because he also needed someone he could control.”
My stomach dropped.
“Evan.”
“Yes.”
She picked up another page.
“If Evan was legally recognized as the father and remained married to you, Charles believed he could control the child’s trust through his son.”
I felt sick.
“This was a financial transaction.”
My mother’s voice cracked.
“To Charles, yes.”
“Then Evan married me for this.”
“I don’t know when he learned the full plan.”
I held up his signature.
“He knew enough.”
“Yes.”
A sound came from above us.
The warehouse door.
Luka instantly killed the lights.
We froze.
Footsteps.
One person.
Slow.
Luka drew his gun.
Marianne whispered.
“There’s no other entrance.”
The footsteps descended.
One stair at a time.
My heart hammered.
Then a voice spoke from the darkness.
“Grace?”
I knew it.
Evan.
Luka raised the gun.
“Hands where I can see them.”
Evan appeared at the bottom of the stairs.
His shirt was torn.
Blood darkened one side of his forehead.
He looked exhausted.
Terrified.
And alone.
I stood.
He saw the papers in my hand.
His face collapsed.
“You found the authorization.”
“Yes.”
He closed his eyes.
“I can explain.”
I laughed.
“Please.”
My voice shook.
“Explain how you authorized another man’s sperm to be put inside your wife without telling her.”
He looked like I had struck him.
Again.
“I didn’t know whose sample M-17 was.”
“You knew it wasn’t yours.”
“Yes.”
“You knew I didn’t know.”
“Yes.”
“You signed anyway.”
His eyes filled.
“Yes.”
I stepped closer.
“Why?”
His voice broke.
“Because my father told me if I didn’t, he would kill you.”
The room went silent.
I stared at him.
“What?”
Evan looked at Marianne.
Then at Luka.
Then at me.
“He had already killed your father.”
My knees nearly failed.
“No.”
May you like
Evan swallowed.
“I saw him do it.”
