Chapter 7 - THE CLINIC WHERE CHILDREN WERE NUMBERED
The North Reservoir Clinic officially closed eight years earlier.
Property records showed it belonged to a shell company managed by Mara Ellis.
Federal agents surrounded the site before dawn.
I was not permitted near the operation.
Neither was Amelia.
We watched through a secure video feed.
The upper floors were empty.
The basement contained medical beds, genetic laboratories, and small bedrooms marked with numbers instead of names.
L-01.
J-03.
N-02.
Some rooms carried codes from families unrelated to mine.
Twenty-three children had been tracked there.
Height.
Health.
Intelligence testing.
Psychological compliance.
Family attachment.
Voss did not view them as patients.
He viewed them as future leverage.
Caroline Grant was found in a locked recovery room.
She had survived Samuel’s birth but suffered severe complications.
Bellweather kept her sedated because she knew too much.
Julian was located in the laboratory archive.
His injuries were serious but not fatal.
Charles Voss was gone.
A tunnel connected the clinic to the reservoir.
Ellis had prepared a boat.
Both escaped before the perimeter closed.
Julian was brought to the federal hospital.
I stood outside his room for ten minutes before entering.
He looked like my father.
Not exactly.
But enough to make me feel anger before he spoke.
“Nathan.”
“You knew about me all your life.”
“Yes.”
“I knew nothing about you.”
“I tried to contact you.”
“Not hard enough.”
He accepted that without argument.
“I hated you for years,” he said.
“Why?”
“You had the name, the house, the company, our father.”
“You think that means I had him?”
Julian looked away.
Our father had harmed us differently.
Julian was erased.
Rebecca was hidden.
I was raised as the public heir and taught that worth required obedience.
Privilege did not make me innocent of the system.
But it did not mean I received a loving father.
“Why didn’t you bring Lily to me?” I asked.
“Amelia believed you were still loyal to Carter Biomedical.”
“And you?”
“I believed you would protect the company before the children.”
The accusation hurt because twelve years earlier it might have been true.
I had sold Bellweather shares without investigating.
I signed annual reports.
I benefited from the family trust.
My ignorance had been comfortable.
“Why Samuel?” I asked.
Julian explained that my father added a final trust clause before death.
If three verified Carter descendants from separate recognized branches existed, control of the family voting trust would transfer from the current chairman to an independent descendant council.
My father intended the clause to protect the company if I became incapacitated.
Voss saw another opportunity.
Lily represented Julian’s branch.
Sophie represented Rebecca’s.
Samuel represented mine.
Together, they could remove me from control and place the trust under guardians selected by Bellweather.
Ellis for Samuel.
Voss’s foundation for Lily.
A private fiduciary for Sophie.
The children would control the empire on paper.
Bellweather would control the children.
“Why abandon Samuel instead of completing the guardianship?”
“Amelia stole him before Voss could register the birth.”
The sealed envelope created direct proof that I knew about my son.
Once paternity was established openly, secretly replacing me as his legal guardian became harder.
Lily’s discovery had disrupted the timeline.
Then Julian told me something worse.
Voss had not escaped empty-handed.
He took the original Carter embryo inventory.
My genetic samples were not exhausted.
Neither were Julian’s.
Nor Rebecca’s.
Bellweather had stored material from all three siblings.
More children could exist.
Continuity was not limited to those we had found.
A federal analyst entered the room with an updated list.
Forty-one births.
Eleven linked to the Carter line.
Lily, Sophie, and Samuel were only three.
Eight other children lived across the country under unrelated names.
Some families had no idea.
Others might have been paid.
We faced an impossible question.
How do you tell a child that the family who raised them may have received them through fraud?
Julian closed his eyes.
“Voss will use the others.”
“For what?”
“To force you to protect the company.”
My phone rang.
Charles Voss appeared on video.
Behind him stood eight children inside a school gymnasium.
He had gathered every unidentified Carter descendant.
“Transfer Carter Biomedical to the Continuity Trust,” he said, “or the world learns your family manufactured children for ownership.”
I looked at the frightened faces.
“Release them.”
“Sign first.”
“You think I care about the company more than them.”
“Your father did.”
“I am not my father.”
Voss smiled.
May you like
“Every Carter says that until inheritance is threatened.”
He gave me six hours.
