Chapter 5 - THE DOCTOR WHO CHOSE MY BABY
St. Matthew’s Women’s Clinic closed twelve years earlier after a fire damaged its surgical wing.
Dr. Samuel Leonard had reopened a private practice across town.
According to public records, he had never worked at St. Matthew’s.
According to my father’s files, he had directed its underground laboratory.
Ross organized two teams.
One would secure Leonard’s public clinic.
The other would enter St. Matthew’s through an abandoned ambulance tunnel.
I was supposed to go to the hospital.
I refused.
Jason wanted the baby monitor.
My father might die if I disappeared.
Ross finally agreed to keep me inside an armored vehicle near the operation.
He did not trust me.
He was right not to.
The moment he left to brief the team, I opened the evidence bag.
The baby monitor contained a memory card beneath the battery.
I removed it and hid it inside my torn shirt.
Then I placed the empty monitor back in the bag.
At 2:13 a.m., we reached St. Matthew’s.
Rain washed over the abandoned entrance.
Broken windows reflected blue emergency lights.
Ross left one agent with me and entered the building.
My phone rang.
Jason.
“Step out of the vehicle.”
I looked at the agent beside me.
He had not heard the phone.
Jason must have called through a hidden earpiece in the monitor system.
“I’m not alone.”
“You will be in ten seconds.”
The agent’s radio crackled.
He leaned toward it.
A dart struck his neck through the open window.
He collapsed against the steering wheel.
I screamed.
Jason opened the rear door.
He pulled me into the rain.
I struck him with the evidence bag.
He caught my arm.
“Where is the card?”
“I don’t know.”
He pressed his thumb into the drill wound on my thigh.
Pain nearly dropped me.
“You’re a terrible liar.”
He dragged me toward a service entrance.
I fought to protect my stomach as we moved down a stairwell.
“Where is my father?”
“Waiting.”
“Why did he choose me?”
“He didn’t.”
Jason looked back.
“He chose your child.”
We reached Sublevel 3.
The corridor smelled of bleach and burned plastic.
Dr. Leonard stood inside a surgical room.
My father remained bound to the chair.
He raised his head when he saw me.
“Emily.”
I had imagined this moment since watching the video.
I thought I would cry.
Instead, anger came first.
“You left me.”
His face broke.
“I tried to protect you.”
“You let me believe you were dead.”
“I had no choice.”
Jason shoved me into a chair.
Leonard approached with an ultrasound probe.
“We need to locate the implant.”
I pulled away.
“You touch me and I scream.”
“No one will hear you.”
My father looked at Leonard.
“She is six months pregnant. Extraction could kill them both.”
Leonard prepared a syringe.
“We do not need the child alive.”
Jason turned sharply.
“That was not the agreement.”
Leonard did not look at him.
“Agreements change.”
For the first time, Jason appeared genuinely afraid.
He grabbed Leonard’s wrist.
“You said you could retrieve the sequence without harming the baby.”
My father laughed weakly.
“You never understood the protocol.”
Jason looked at him.
“What are you talking about?”
My father stared directly at me.
“There is no code inside the child.”
Leonard froze.
Jason’s grip loosened.
My father continued.
“The baby was never the storage device.”
May you like
His eyes moved toward my chest.
“Emily is.”
