Chapter 9 - Blood Is Not Consent.
Luka killed the lights before the first intruder crossed the threshold.
Thomas opened a floodgate, and freezing rainwater thundered through the lower passage.
June carried Ava toward an emergency ladder while I followed with one hand on her back.
Behind us, Luka and Thomas delayed the men without firing toward the ladder.
We surfaced inside a maintenance yard and escaped in a utility truck.
The pumping station disappeared behind curtains of rain.
No one spoke until Ava began to cry.
Her voice reminded us that survival was not a strategy.
We took shelter in a small hotel owned by one of Miriam's former witnesses.
Thomas and Luka argued in the adjoining room.
“Tell her what you believed when you signed that certificate,” my father said.
Silence followed.
I entered with Ava in my arms.
“Tell me.”
Luka faced me.
“I believed there was a strong chance I was her biological father.”
“You knew that before you touched the pen.”
“Yes.”
“And you let me think the signature was only a legal trick.”
“It was protection, but it was also responsibility.”
“Responsibility begins with the truth.”
His expression tightened as if I had struck the wound beneath his bandage.
“You are right.”
He placed the black pen on the table.
“I will not claim you or Ava, and I will sign anything your attorney requires.”
“Leave the room.”
He obeyed.
Before closing the door, Luka removed the pistol from his belt and placed it beside the black pen.
It was his way of surrendering both force and claim.
I hated that I understood the gesture.
I also hated that part of me felt safer when he remained on the other side of the wall.
Ava slept against my heartbeat, innocent of every adult who had confused blood with ownership.
I promised her that no test result would choose her family for her.
An hour later, Vivian called my private number.
She was crying, but I no longer trusted tears.
“My mother knows the decoy drive is transmitting,” she said.
“She is feeding you a false location.”
“Why should I believe you?”
Vivian confessed that Eleanor Cross had suffered from the same immune disease that killed my mother.
She had built M-17 to create a treatment for herself.
Grant's affair with Vivian was real, but their relationship had begun as another project assignment.
Vivian believed Grant would leave me, marry her, and use his payment to escape Eleanor's control.
“He walked away from you because he thought Luka's sample had worked.”
“And you smiled while he did it.”
“I told myself you were only a file.”
Her voice broke.
“Then I saw you holding Ava.”
Vivian offered access credentials to the gala laboratory in exchange for immunity.
I told her to send them to Miriam.
The hotel fire alarm sounded before the call ended.
Smoke seeped beneath the hall door.
June placed Ava in the portable bassinet and moved toward the rear stairs.
The lights failed.
Someone struck me from behind, and the corridor turned sideways.
I woke less than a minute later with Luka kneeling beside me.
June lay unconscious but breathing near the stairwell.
The bassinet was empty.
My phone displayed a live video from the Vale Meridian gala stage.
Behind the velvet curtain, Grant held Ava against his chest.
May you like
“Bring the original ledger,” he said into the camera.
“This time, come without Luka.”
