Chapter 8 - ROBERT’S CONFESSION
Robert’s video lasted forty-two minutes.
He admitted participating in the Mercer system for decades.
He signed false death forms.
He approved transfers.
He allowed Diane and Margaret to hide girls inside maternity homes.
He told himself he was protecting the family.
Then he learned Diane had given away their own daughter—me—and later arranged for me to marry Luke.
That was when he turned against her.
He tried to find me before the wedding.
Diane intercepted him.
She threatened to expose his crimes and send Luke to prison.
Robert remained silent.
His cowardice allowed the marriage to happen.
Years later, he discovered Diane planned to use my body for succession pregnancies.
He gathered the ledger and contacted Eleanor.
Before he could deliver it, Diane attacked him in the dining room with the bamboo stick.
Margaret arrived afterward.
She helped stage the fall to protect herself.
Robert’s video named judges, doctors, lawyers, and adoption brokers.
The guardianship judge immediately dismissed Diane’s petition.
Federal agents arrested three court officials before lunch.
Diane was taken into custody on charges of assault, fraud, trafficking, conspiracy, and murder.
She did not look at the officers.
She looked at me.
“This family will die without a son.”
I stood.
“Then let it.”
The courtroom went silent.
For the first time, Diane had no answer.
But justice did not arrive all at once.
Her lawyers argued that Robert’s recording was coerced and the ledger unreliable.
Dr. Vale withdrew parts of his confession.
Several adoptive families sought injunctions to seal the names of the girls.
The network began protecting itself.
Then Eleanor disappeared.
Her hospital room was empty.
A note remained beneath the pillow.
I found one of the missing sisters.
She knows who ordered Claire’s pregnancy.
That meant Diane had not created the embryo plan alone.
Someone above her had wanted my daughter born.
The termination form may have been a threat, not the true plan.
Ortiz traced Eleanor’s last call to a private biotechnology company called Helix Crown.
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Its director was Dr. Vivian Shaw.
My adoptive mother.
