Chapter 14 - THE SECOND ABDUCTION
The hospital security team found Ethan unconscious in the hallway.
Rebecca had disappeared with Emma.
For one terrible hour, I believed Rebecca had betrayed us.
Then her car was found abandoned.
Blood marked the driver’s seat.
A message arrived from Meridian Biosystems.
The company had activated its own extraction team after Helen’s arrest.
Helen had been one broker.
Meridian was the buyer.
They wanted Emma’s genetic material before federal investigators froze the research contracts.
Rebecca had tried to stop them.
She and Emma were taken together.
The server files identified a Meridian laboratory beneath a private pediatric hospital.
Federal agents obtained a warrant.
The corporation’s lawyers delayed entry.
Every minute mattered.
Luke offered a service tunnel map.
He had delivered documents there for Helen.
Ortiz took the map and led a tactical team underground.
I remained in a command vehicle, listening.
The tunnel ended beneath a surgical wing.
Agents found Rebecca restrained in a storage room.
Emma was already being prepared for a procedure.
Dr. Adrian Vale was not dead.
The body at the motel belonged to another man.
Vale stood over Emma wearing surgical gloves.
Ortiz arrested him before the first incision.
Emma fought the sedative long enough to say, “My mom knew I wouldn’t drink it.”
She survived.
Meridian executives claimed they knew nothing about Helen’s methods.
The servers proved otherwise.
Emails discussed “behavioral management,” legal incapacity, and permanent transfer of subjects.
The government froze the company.
Helen, Luke, Robert, Claire, Vale, Judge Mercer, and multiple executives were indicted.
Robert’s cooperation reduced his sentence.
Claire entered witness protection with her son.
Luke asked to see Emma.
She refused.
He asked to see me.
I agreed once.
He cried.
“I was afraid of my mother.”
“So was I.”
“I did love you.”
“You loved having control over whether I knew the truth.”
He had no answer.
As officers led him away, Rebecca called.
A DNA file from Meridian had revealed something unexpected.
Emma was not my only child in their system.
Another profile carried my genetic marker.
A boy.
Age six.
Status: active observation.
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The listed guardian was Ethan Brooks.
My brother.
