Chapter 2 - THE CHILD IN THE HOUSE
Police arrived before Daniel could force the door closed.
He surrendered the gun only after officers surrounded the driveway.
Michael opened the front door from inside.
Alive.
Older.
Scarred across one side of his face.
Beside him stood a three-year-old boy wearing pajamas and holding a toy truck.
His name was Eli.
The hospital bracelet identified me as his mother.
DNA testing later confirmed it.
I was his biological mother.
I had never carried him.
Three years earlier, during a fertility procedure Daniel called “routine testing,” my eggs had been collected without full consent.
An embryo was created using Daniel’s genetic material and transferred into a surrogate.
Eli was born and hidden in the basement nursery beneath our house.
Why?
Daniel’s family trust required a male heir before age forty.
He planned to present Eli publicly only after he controlled my inheritance.
Then I became pregnant naturally.
That threatened the arrangement.
A second heir could divide the trust.
Daniel wanted my current pregnancy ended through “accidental” domestic violence.
The water containers.
The fall.
The punch.
The gun.
All part of escalating pressure.
Michael had discovered the basement after escaping from the man Daniel hired to keep him hidden.
Daniel had staged Michael’s death because my brother knew about the fertility clinic.
Then Eli pointed toward the basement door.
May you like
“There’s another baby.”
Read Chapter 3 to learn why two children had been hidden beneath Sarah’s home.
