Chapter 14 - Northstar
Rebecca connected Northstar Strategic Holdings to an international adoption network under investigation in three countries.
The organization presented itself as a private fertility and relocation service.
Behind the paperwork was something darker.
Illegal surrogacy contracts.
Coerced mothers.
Forged parentage documents.
Children moved through private intermediaries to wealthy clients willing to pay enormous amounts for newborns with specific backgrounds.
My twins had already been listed.
Male.
Caucasian.
Healthy.
Biological father with no known hereditary disease.
Private-placement value.
Three point eight million dollars.
I almost vomited.
“They’re people.”
Rebecca looked at me.
“I know.”
“They’re six weeks old.”
“I know.”
“Someone put a price next to my sons.”
Her voice softened.
“We’re going to stop them.”
I slammed my fist against the desk.
“How many children?”
Rebecca hesitated.
“At least seventeen linked transactions.”
My rage became something colder.
Claire was not a desperate wife stealing her husband’s fortune.
She was part of a machine.
My death was simply one transaction.
Elena was another loose end.
Mara was another.
Caleb might have been another.
“What happens tomorrow?”
Rebecca opened a map.
“We believe the twins are supposed to move through a private airfield outside Westbridge.”
“At 9:40.”
“Yes.”
“That means someone will arrive here.”
“Probably.”
“We need them alive.”
Rebecca nodded.
“And we need Claire believing her plan still works.”
That required something almost impossible.
I had to walk into Friday night knowing my wife intended to drug me.
I had to allow her to believe she succeeded.
I had to survive long enough for the network to expose itself.
Mara refused to leave.
“I’m staying.”
“No.”
“My sister is somewhere inside this.”
“You have Lily.”
“Exactly.”
She stared at me.
“My daughter almost died because I was afraid.”
“I’m done being afraid.”
I understood.
At four that afternoon, Rebecca received another message.
They had traced Elena’s recording.
It came from an abandoned rehabilitation center thirty minutes north of the city.
A tactical team entered before sunset.
They found medical restraints.
Blood.
Empty food containers.
Burner phones.
But no Elena.
On one wall, someone had scratched four words into the paint.
Mara recognized her sister’s handwriting.
FRIDAY.
WHITMORE HOUSE.
BASEMENT.
May you like
I had lived in that house for eight years.
We did not have a basement.
