Chapter 5 - The Experiment With My Name
Gas began pouring through the vents.
Gabriel shot the lock.
Nothing.
I recognized the warning label near the ceiling.
“Not poison.”
“What?”
“Sedative aerosol.”
“That’s supposed to reassure me?”
“No.”
Matteo smashed the ventilation panel.
Gabriel’s men forced open a maintenance door.
We escaped seconds before the concentration became dangerous.
Dr. Warren was gone.
But he left records.
Enough to explain what “created” meant.
Not literally.
I had not been manufactured in a laboratory.
My mother had undergone fertility treatment.
Nathan Cole was the donor.
The trial selected embryos carrying a rare mutation.
I was the only successful birth.
My mother had agreed because researchers told her the mutation could be corrected before implantation.
It wasn’t.
They lied.
When she discovered the truth, she ran.
Matteo helped.
Nathan Cole disappeared.
Leo and Anthony continued tracking me.
For decades.
“Why not take me earlier?” I asked.
“Because you were more valuable living normally,” Matteo said. “They needed longitudinal data.”
My life had been an experiment I never knew I was participating in.
My career in pharmacy suddenly felt less accidental.
Had they influenced that too?
Records suggested they had.
Scholarships.
Internships.
Recommendations.
Invisible hands had guided me toward St. Catherine’s.
I cried that night.
Not elegantly.
Gabriel sat beside me on the floor.
He didn’t tell me to stop.
Eventually I said, “I don’t know which parts of my life are mine.”
He answered immediately.
“The choices you made when nobody was forcing you.”
“How do I know?”
“You protected Liam.”
“He’s an idiot.”
“Still your choice.”
“I became a pharmacist.”
“You worked for it.”
“I asked a mafia boss to pretend he loved me.”
His mouth moved.
“That choice was questionable.”
I laughed through tears.
Then he kissed me.
Softly.
Once.
He pulled away first.
“That wasn’t pretending.”
“I know.”
“If you want me to leave—”
I kissed him back.
The world could wait thirty seconds.
Maybe sixty.
Then Liam ruined it by opening the door.
“Oh.”
I closed my eyes.
Gabriel looked ready to murder him.
Liam backed out.
“I saw nothing.”
“Correct,” Gabriel said.
We found my mother the next day.
She contacted Liam.
She wanted to surrender.
Gabriel arranged a safe location.
When I saw her, anger returned.
“You lied to me my entire life.”
“Yes.”
“You let me bury you.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Anthony found me.”
She explained.
Five years earlier, she discovered Anthony had resumed the trial.
She staged her death with help from Matteo.
“If they believed I was dead, they stopped watching you as closely.”
“They never stopped.”
“I know.”
She cried.
“I failed.”
I wanted to hate her.
But I remembered the mother who worked two jobs.
Who sat beside my bed when I was sick.
Who taught me to drive.
Who embarrassed me at graduation by crying louder than anyone.
Love does not disappear when truth becomes ugly.
It becomes complicated.
“Where is Nathan Cole?”
My mother looked at Matteo.
“He’s alive.”
“Where?”
“Working for Anthony.”
That hurt differently.
“My father chose them?”
“No.”
“He’s been trying to destroy the research from inside.”
Gabriel asked, “Can we contact him?”
My mother nodded.
“He has the original trial ledger.”
That ledger could expose everyone.
Hospital administrators.
Researchers.
Investors.
Anthony.
Leo.
It could also prove Gabriel had nothing to do with the operation.
Nathan agreed to meet.
Boston Harbor.
An old ferry terminal.
Gabriel refused to let me go alone.
We arrived before midnight.
Nathan appeared.
Tall.
Thin.
Gray hair.
My eyes.
That was the first thing I noticed.
He stared at me.
“Quinn.”
I didn’t call him Dad.
He hadn’t earned that.
“Ledger.”
He nodded.
Fair.
He handed Gabriel a waterproof case.
Inside were records.
Names.
Payments.
Patient deaths.
Illegal experimentation.
Everything.
Then Nathan said, “There’s one problem.”
“Anthony knows I took it.”
Gunfire erupted outside.
Gabriel pushed me down.
His men returned fire.
Nathan was hit in the shoulder.
We escaped through a maintenance corridor.
At the car, Gabriel counted everyone.
My mother.
Nathan.
Liam.
Matteo.
Me.
Julian.
All alive.
Then Gabriel’s phone rang.
Anthony.
Gabriel answered.
“You lost.”
Anthony laughed.
“No.”
“You wanted the ledger.”
“I wanted Quinn.”
“You don’t have her.”
“I don’t need her anymore.”
My stomach dropped.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
Anthony heard me.
“Dr. Hayes. Did you ever wonder why Marco was told to get proof?”
Gabriel’s expression hardened.
Anthony continued.
“The photograph wasn’t for leverage.”
“What was it for?”
“To identify the final subject pairing.”
Gabriel looked at me.
Anthony laughed softly.
“You still think Quinn was the only child in the experiment?”
Silence.
Then Nathan whispered:
“No.”
He stared at Gabriel.
Gabriel stared back.
Nathan’s face went white.
Anthony delivered the final blow.
“Ask Matteo why Gabriel Costa’s blood was collected the night his father supposedly died.”
The call ended.
Matteo did not deny it.
May you like
And that was when Gabriel realized the experiment had never been designed around me alone.
It had been designed around both of us.
