Chapter 11 - The Seventeenth Mother.
I refused Eleanor's choice because both lives mattered.
With Ava against my chest, I ran back into Room M-17 and searched for anything that could release the partitions.
My mother's wedding ring rested inside a sealed display box.
Beside it was a photograph of her holding me beneath a red emergency switch.
She was not looking at the camera.
She was pointing at the switch.
I broke the display glass with a metal chart holder and took the ring.
Its inner surface contained a narrow magnetic strip.
When I pressed it against the emergency panel, the timer stopped at eight minutes.
The partitions rose six inches and jammed.
Luka dropped to the floor and forced his fingers beneath the steel.
Thomas pushed from the opposite side.
I placed Ava inside the old bassinet, locked its wheels, and used a hydraulic stool as a lever.
The partition climbed high enough for Luka to roll beneath it.
He emerged coughing and immediately crawled toward Ava.
Grant slipped through the second opening with the false ledger.
“Let him go,” I said.
“We have what he wants them to believe.”
Eleanor's voice ordered a full laboratory purge.
Sprinklers released chemical foam instead of water.
Hard drives began melting inside their cabinets.
Thomas led us to the archive while Luka carried Ava beneath his jacket.
We removed seventeen patient files, the original consent forms, and a storage drive containing decades of surveillance.
The last cabinet held a refrigerated envelope labeled M-17B FINAL KINSHIP ANALYSIS.
Two sealed reports were inside.
Luka did not open them.
He handed the envelope to me.
“The truth belongs to you.”
The archive door locked behind us.
Vivian appeared on the other side of its window.
I expected her to leave us there.
Instead, she placed her palm against a scanner and released the lock.
“My mother knows I gave you the credentials,” she said.
Her perfect black dress was torn, and blood ran from a cut above her eyebrow.
“Did you take Ava from the hotel?”
“I gave Grant the room number.”
“That is the same thing.”
Vivian accepted my anger.
“He promised he would only move her before Eleanor's men arrived.”
“You keep believing promises made by cowards.”
She opened the freight elevator.
“Then let me believe one promise made by myself.”
Vivian promised to testify in front of every investor upstairs.
The elevator carried us toward the gala while alarms echoed beneath our feet.
Luka stood beside me, close enough to protect but careful not to touch.
“When this is over, I will have my name removed from the certificate,” he said.
I looked at the sealed DNA reports.
“Do you want to know?”
His gaze rested on Ava.
“I want her safe more than I want her to be mine.”
The elevator doors opened behind the ballroom stage.
Hundreds of guests applauded as Eleanor Cross announced a medical miracle she claimed to have created.
Vivian stepped into the light.
Her mother saw the files in my arms and stopped speaking.
Then Grant appeared above us on the balcony.
May you like
He held a remote detonator in one hand.
“Nobody leaves with the truth.”
