Chapter 2 - The Five-Year-Old Order
My goal was to find out what Dr. Adrian Cole had ordered five years earlier.
At the hospital, doctors treated my burns and monitored the baby.
The baby’s heartbeat stabilized.
That was the first reward.
Luke was kept away from me while police documented the scene.
My obstetrician, Dr. Rachel Morgan, came in after seeing the genetic requisition.
She pulled the archived fertility record.
The order was not for treatment.
It was for storage.
Cryogenic storage of male embryos.
Created from:
Paternal source — Luke Hayes.
Maternal source — unidentified donor code M-17.
I stared at her.
“Luke had embryos before we met?”
“Yes.”
“Why is my pregnancy linked to one?”
She did not know.
Then she checked the embryo tracking code.
One embryo from that batch had been transferred.
Three years ago.
Transfer recipient:
Caroline Hayes.
My name.
But I had never undergone IVF.
Never had an embryo transfer.
Dr. Morgan looked disturbed.
“Did you have any procedure during the month you conceived?”
I remembered.
A minor uterine polyp removal.
Outpatient.
Sedation.
Luke insisted on using Dr. Cole’s clinic because he “trusted him.”
The clinic told me they removed a small polyp.
That was all.
Now the transfer log suggested an embryo had been placed inside me during that procedure.
Without my consent.
My stomach turned.
Then the police investigator asked whether Luke had wanted a boy.
I almost laughed.
Wanted was too gentle.
Luke had built his entire identity around a male heir.
His father had too.
Then Dr. Morgan opened the donor-code file.
Maternal source M-17.
Not me.
The embryo linked to my pregnancy was not created from my egg.
That should have meant the baby was not biologically mine.
But the prenatal test said otherwise.
Fresh maternal DNA showed I was the biological mother.
Contradiction.
Then the lab found a correction note.
M-17 had been mislabeled.
Actual source:
Caroline Reed.
My maiden name.
Another file.
Another date.
Seven years ago.
Before Luke.
I had undergone ovarian surgery at twenty-two.
The hospital preserved tissue for medical research.
I never authorized reproductive use.
Someone acquired it later.
Dr. Cole.
Then my mother arrived.
She went pale when she saw the file.
“You knew?” I asked.
She shook her head.
But her eyes told me something else.
She knew the surgery tissue had been stored.
She did not know it had been sold.
Who sold it?
The pathology contractor.
Owned by Cole Medical Holdings.
Luke’s specialist’s company.
Cause and effect tightened.
My tissue existed.
Dr. Cole acquired it.
Luke created embryos with it before meeting me.
Then Luke met me.
Married me.
Then arranged a clinic procedure during which one embryo may have been transferred.
That meant our relationship itself might have been part of a reproductive plan.
Then Dr. Morgan said:
“There’s one more problem.”
The embryo code used for transfer was marked MALE.
But my current fetus was female.
I stared at her.
“What?”
She repeated it.
My baby was a girl.
Luke had spent months threatening me over that possibility.
Yet the embryo placed was supposed to be male.
That meant either the wrong embryo was transferred—or the pregnancy did not come from that transfer.
Then we compared conception timing.
My natural ovulation occurred three days after the clinic procedure.
Possible spontaneous conception.
Luke was still biological father.
So the unauthorized embryo may not have implanted at all.
Then why was the embryo transfer hidden in my medical record?
Because if it had implanted, Luke expected a son.
My daughter existed because the illegal plan failed.
That was the second Information Bomb.
May you like
**Luke’s secret embryo transfer had been designed to guarantee a male child, but the embryo failed and I conceived our daughter naturally days later.**
*I thought the hidden procedure explained Luke’s cruelty, but the next clinic file showed why he believed a daughter would cost him far more than pride.*
