Chapter 4 - The Child With My Blood
Claire refused to answer the call.
It stopped.
Then started again.
DAD.
Adrian watched her hands tremble.
"Claire."
"My father is dead."
"I know."
"I buried him."
Adrian gently took the phone.
"Then whoever is calling wants you afraid."
He answered.
Silence.
"Speak."
A man's voice replied.
"You always did sound like your father when you were angry."
Adrian's expression changed.
Claire looked at him.
"Who is it?"
The voice continued.
"Put Claire on."
"No."
"Then ask her why she never told you about the clinic in Milwaukee."
Claire went rigid.
Adrian saw it.
The caller laughed softly.
"There it is."
Adrian's voice dropped.
"Who are you?"
"Someone who knows the baby matters more than you understand."
The line disconnected.
Adrian turned to Claire.
"Milwaukee."
She looked away.
"Claire."
"I was scared."
"Of me?"
"Of everyone."
"What clinic?"
Her silence answered enough.
Luca stepped forward.
"Was it Westbridge Fertility?"
Claire looked at him.
Adrian turned sharply.
"How do you know that?"
Luca cursed under his breath.
"Because Westbridge appears in the shell-company records."
Claire sank into a chair.
Adrian crouched in front of her.
"Talk to me."
She pressed both hands against her stomach.
"After we divorced, I wanted something that was mine."
Adrian waited.
"A future nobody could control."
Her eyes met his.
"I wanted a child."
His chest tightened.
"So you went to a fertility clinic."
She nodded.
"Donor?"
Claire hesitated.
That hesitation changed everything.
"Claire."
"There wasn't supposed to be a donor."
Adrian stared.
"What does that mean?"
Her voice shook.
"Before our divorce, we froze embryos."
He remembered.
Three years earlier.
They had tried for a baby.
Claire had suffered two miscarriages.
The second nearly destroyed them.
Doctors suggested IVF.
They created embryos.
Then Luca "died."
Adrian's world exploded into retaliation and paranoia.
Claire grew frightened of what he was becoming.
The embryos were never used.
Until—
Adrian stood slowly.
"No."
Claire cried now.
"I thought they were destroyed."
"Claire."
"The clinic told me they had been destroyed after the divorce because both signatures were required for continued storage."
Adrian could barely hear anything over his heartbeat.
"But?"
"Eight months ago, I received an anonymous package."
She looked at her stomach.
"One embryo still existed."
Adrian's voice became almost inaudible.
"Ours?"
Claire nodded.
The room disappeared again.
His child.
Claire was carrying his child.
Every emotion hit him at once.
Shock.
Joy he did not feel entitled to.
Fear.
Anger.
An almost primitive need to protect them both.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I tried."
"When?"
"Those calls. The emails. The letters."
Adrian closed his eyes.
Everything connected.
Claire had not been trying to ask him for money.
She had been trying to tell him he was going to be a father.
Someone intercepted every attempt.
"Why did you go through with the transfer?"
Claire wiped her cheek.
"Because after everything we'd lost... I couldn't destroy the last piece of us."
Adrian looked down.
For the first time in years, he had no words.
Claire continued.
"I told myself I wasn't doing it to get you back."
"Were you?"
"No."
The answer hurt.
Then she added quietly:
"But I think part of me hoped that someday our child could know you."
Adrian looked at her.
"Did you believe I wouldn't want the baby?"
"I didn't know what to believe anymore."
Fair.
Terribly fair.
Luca paced toward the records.
"Westbridge wasn't random."
Adrian turned.
"What?"
"The embryo being preserved wasn't an accident."
Claire paled.
"You're saying someone deliberately kept it?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
Luca opened a file on the computer.
"Because they needed leverage."
Adrian's face hardened.
"Against me."
"Eventually."
Marcus stepped closer.
"Then why allow Claire to become pregnant?"
Luca stared at the screen.
"Maybe they didn't merely allow it."
Claire's hand moved protectively over her abdomen.
"What does that mean?"
Luca didn't answer.
Adrian stepped between him and Claire.
"Choose your next sentence carefully."
Luca turned the monitor.
"Westbridge's medical director was paid through the same shell company that received Claire's stolen support money."
Adrian looked.
Payments.
Dates.
Eight months earlier.
Exactly when Claire underwent the embryo transfer.
"They arranged this," Adrian said.
"Possibly."
Claire stood abruptly.
"No."
Bennett moved toward her.
"Claire, sit down."
"No. You're telling me strangers decided whether I got pregnant?"
"No one is saying that," Adrian replied.
Luca's expression disagreed.
Claire saw.
"What?"
Luca hesitated.
"There may have been a reason they wanted a Vale heir."
Silence.
Adrian's voice became dangerous.
"Explain."
"Your father's trust."
Adrian stared.
"What trust?"
"The private succession trust."
"I know every trust."
"No. You know the public structures."
Luca brought up another document.
"Your father created a dormant trust holding several properties, voting shares, and offshore assets."
"How much?"
"Approximately nine hundred million."
Marcus whistled softly.
Adrian didn't react.
"Condition?"
"The trust activates only if you have a biological child."
Adrian understood.
"The child inherits."
"Eventually. But until age twenty-one, the appointed trustee controls the assets."
"Who is trustee?"
Luca looked at him.
"Thomas Beckett."
Now everything had shape.
Thomas needed Adrian's biological child to activate a fortune Thomas could control.
But why destroy Claire?
Why hide the pregnancy?
Luca answered before Adrian asked.
"If Adrian knew, Thomas could be removed before activation."
"So Claire had to be isolated," Marcus said.
"And vulnerable."
Claire looked sick.
Adrian's rage became colder.
"They starved the mother of my child to keep her dependent."
"Yes."
"And Thomas knew where she was."
"Almost certainly."
Adrian looked at the wall of photographs.
Every image of Claire suddenly became evidence of a cage.
"Then we're going to my penthouse."
Claire immediately shook her head.
"No."
"Rachel is there."
"So is Thomas."
"Exactly."
"Adrian—"
"I won't bring you."
Her eyes flashed.
"You don't decide that anymore."
He stopped.
Even now, she could do that.
One sentence.
He changed course.
"Then what do you want?"
"I want Rachel alive."
"So do I."
"And I want answers."
"You'll get them."
"From Thomas."
Adrian looked at her.
"You're thirty-two weeks pregnant, severely dehydrated, and you collapsed an hour ago."
"I know."
"You are not walking into a hostage situation."
"You don't know Rachel."
"No."
"I do."
Adrian exhaled.
"Claire."
"She protected me at St. Catherine. When people started asking questions about my pregnancy, Rachel moved me to another shelter. She gave me cash. She taught me which cameras to avoid."
"Why didn't Luca know?"
Luca answered. "Because Rachel stopped reporting to me."
Claire nodded.
"She said someone compromised her operation."
Luca frowned.
"She never told me that."
"She didn't trust you."
That visibly hit him.
Marcus almost smiled.
Adrian looked between them.
"Fine."
Claire's eyebrows lifted.
"Fine?"
"You come."
Marcus stared at him.
Adrian added:
"In the armored command vehicle. Two blocks away. You don't leave it."
Claire opened her mouth.
"That's the compromise."
She considered.
"One block."
"Two."
"One."
Adrian stared.
Claire stared back.
"One and a half."
"Deal."
Marcus muttered, "I missed this marriage."
Neither laughed.
Forty minutes later, Adrian's convoy approached downtown.
His penthouse occupied the top three floors of Vale Tower.
Normally, forty armed security personnel controlled the building after midnight.
Tonight, twenty-eight were not answering phones.
The remaining twelve had been ordered off-site by an authorization carrying Adrian's credentials.
Again.
Thomas knew the system.
Because Thomas helped build it.
Claire stayed inside the command vehicle with Bennett, Daniel, and Luca.
Adrian and Marcus entered through the underground service corridor.
The building was silent.
Too silent.
On the seventieth floor, Marcus found the first guard.
Alive.
Drugged.
They found two more.
Same.
"No shooting," Marcus whispered.
"They wanted control, not bodies."
"Yet."
They reached the private residence.
The door stood open.
Adrian entered.
His home looked untouched.
Claire's old piano remained against the east windows.
He had never moved it.
Her favorite vase still stood in the hallway.
He had told himself it was because redecorating was unnecessary.
He knew better.
Marcus pointed.
A trail of blood.
Small drops.
Leading toward the office.
They followed.
The door was closed.
Adrian opened it.
Rachel Mercer sat tied to a chair.
Alone.
Her lip was bleeding.
Adrian moved toward her.
"Where's Thomas?"
Rachel's eyes widened.
"Don't."
Marcus checked the room.
"Don't what?"
Rachel shook her head frantically.
"You weren't supposed to come inside."
Adrian cut her restraints.
"Where is he?"
Rachel looked toward the window.
Adrian followed her gaze.
On the desk sat a laptop.
Live video played.
Claire.
Inside the command vehicle.
Adrian's blood turned cold.
The video angle was from inside the vehicle.
"Marcus."
Marcus called Daniel.
No answer.
Bennett.
No answer.
Luca.
Nothing.
Adrian grabbed his phone and called Claire.
The live video showed her phone vibrating beside her.
Claire was gone.
The command vehicle door stood open.
Then Thomas Beckett entered the camera frame.
He leaned toward the lens.
Smiled.
And held up Claire's cream cardigan.
Adrian stared at the screen.
Thomas spoke directly into the hidden camera.
"You wanted your family back, Adrian?"
He lifted something else.
A small ultrasound photograph.
"Come earn them."
The feed switched.
Another room appeared.
Claire sat in a chair.
Her hands were free.
A man stood behind her.
Adrian could not see his face.
Then Claire looked directly toward the camera and whispered:
"Adrian, don't come."
The man behind her placed one hand on her shoulder.
May you like
And Claire added three words that made Adrian stop breathing.
"He knows Mom."
