Chapter 3 - The Man My Father Saved
The SUV tore out of the hospital garage while Luka remained behind.
I twisted in my seat.
“Stop the car.”
Mara kept driving.
“Luka knows what he’s doing.”
“There were two men.”
“There are always more than two.”
That answer did not comfort me.
My daughter slept against my chest.
I touched her cheek.
She had entered the world less than six hours earlier.
Already people were hunting her.
“Tell me everything.”
Mara’s hands tightened around the steering wheel.
“Meridian Dynamics began as a legitimate medical research company.”
“Began?”
“In the 1990s, they studied rare genetic mutations that could help the body repair damaged blood cells.”
“What happened?”
“They discovered a family line with an extraordinary marker.”
“My mother.”
“Her family.”
Mara nodded.
“Your grandmother carried it.”
“Why would anyone care?”
“Because the marker interacted with certain experimental compounds in ways no one expected.”
I stared at her.
“What ways?”
“Rapid cellular repair.”
I laughed once.
It sounded broken.
“You’re telling me my mother was some kind of miracle?”
“No.”
Mara’s voice became sharper.
“I’m telling you greedy people believed she could make them billions.”
The SUV turned onto a narrow residential road.
“They experimented on her?”
“Not at first.”
Mara swallowed.
“Later, yes.”
Anger burned beneath my exhaustion.
“And my father?”
“Daniel was a data analyst at Meridian.”
“He found out?”
“He found out the experiments were continuing without informed consent.”
My fingers closed around the blanket.
“He tried to expose them.”
“He copied records.”
“Then he died.”
Mara looked at me in the mirror.
“We do not believe Daniel’s crash was an accident.”
For several seconds, I could not breathe.
Every memory of my father changed at once.
His habit of checking the windows.
The locks he replaced twice.
The locked metal box beneath his desk.
The nights he told me never to open the door for strangers.
I had thought he was overprotective.
He had been terrified.
“What does Luka have to do with this?”
Mara pulled into the driveway of a modest brick house.
“Luka’s mother was enrolled in an early Meridian treatment program.”
“He was a patient?”
“Collateral damage.”
The front door opened.
Luka walked out.
I stared.
“How did you get here before us?”
He shrugged.
“Motorcycle.”
There was blood on his knuckles.
“You’re hurt.”
“Not mine.”
Mara rolled her eyes.
“Subtle as ever.”
Inside the house, Luka led me to a bedroom prepared with diapers, formula, blankets, and a portable crib.
Someone had been expecting a baby.
I turned on him.
“You knew this would happen.”
“I knew something might happen.”
“You prepared a nursery.”
“Your father prepared it.”
I froze.
Luka opened a closet.
Behind a row of coats was a steel safe.
He entered six numbers.
The door unlocked.
Inside were documents, photographs, flash drives, and one sealed envelope.
On the envelope was my father’s handwriting.
FOR CLARA AFTER THE BIRTH OF HER FIRST CHILD.
My knees nearly gave out.
Luka handed it to me.
I tore it open.
Inside was one page.
My father’s handwriting covered both sides.
Clara,
If you are reading this, then Meridian has found your child.
Do not trust the hospital.
Do not trust the birth records.
And above all, do not trust the man who married you until you know why he chose you.
I stopped reading.
Ethan.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
At the bottom of the page, my father had underlined one sentence three times.
May you like
The M-17 line can only be opened through blood.
And Ethan Cole knows exactly whose blood he needs.
