Chapter 4 - THE FOURTH CHILD
Emily Mercer became the first person inside Sloane’s family willing to talk.
Not publicly.
Not yet.
She was a laboratory embryologist.
She had worked at her father’s clinic until six months earlier.
“Why leave?” I asked.
“Because I found the logs.”
“What logs?”
She sent encrypted copies through Naomi.
Embryo intake.
Transfer preparation.
Chain-of-custody overrides.
My identifiers.
Preston’s.
Sloane’s.
Everything matched.
Three embryos from North Harbor.
All male.
All transferred to Sloane in one procedure.
I could barely breathe.
“Did Sloane know they were mine?”
Emily hesitated.
“Yes.”
That hurt.
“Did Preston?”
“I don’t know.”
“What about his signature?”
“My father said Gordon brought authorization.”
“Was Preston there?”
“No.”
So his signature might be forged too.
Or copied from legitimate storage documents.
Then I asked:
“Why?”
Emily’s answer was simple.
“Gordon wanted grandsons.”
My stomach turned.
The Ashford family trust had an old succession structure favoring direct descendants for certain voting blocks.
Not legally restricted to males.
But culturally?
Gordon obsessed over sons.
Preston was his only son.
Lenora had miscarried twice before having him.
I remembered family dinners where Gordon joked that Preston had “one job” someday.
Continue the line.
But why use my embryos?
Why not Preston and Sloane’s own?
Emily answered that too.
“Sloane had diminished ovarian reserve.”
I stared.
“She couldn’t produce viable eggs?”
“She had two failed cycles.”
“And Gordon knew?”
“Yes.”
“So he used mine.”
“Your embryos were already created. Screened. Healthy. Three male.”
It was eugenics wrapped in family planning.
A billionaire grandfather selecting genetically related grandsons from storage.
I felt sick.
“Why did Sloane agree?”
Emily’s voice became quiet.
“She loved Preston.”
“Love didn’t require stealing my embryos.”
“No.”
“And your father?”
“Money.”
“How much?”
“I found a payment to the clinic development fund.”
“Amount?”
“Eight million.”
Gordon offered me twelve to disappear.
Paid eight to create heirs.
Twenty million dollars to replace me.
Then Emily said something else.
“There were supposed to be four embryos.”
I frowned.
“No. Three male embryos were missing.”
“Three transferred.”
“What fourth?”
“One additional embryo arrived later.”
“From where?”
“Different patient.”
“Who?”
Emily went silent.
“That’s the problem.”
A female embryo.
Transferred to another gestational carrier through a shell arrangement connected to Mercer Reproductive.
The file was incomplete.
Why was Emily telling me?
“Because I think Gordon was doing this more than once.”
“What do you mean?”
“He was building backup heirs.”
The phrase made me nauseous.
Children as redundancies.
Then Emily sent another file.
Female embryo.
Genetic father identified only by initials:
P.A.
Preston Ashford.
Genetic mother:
UNKNOWN DONOR.
My heart started pounding.
“Did Preston know?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was the child born?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Seven months ago.”
“Where?”
“Maryland.”
“Who has her?”
Emily hesitated.
Then:
“No one from the Ashford family.”
The gestational carrier disappeared after birth.
Not criminally.
Legally.
She challenged payment because the intended-parent documents were defective.
The baby entered temporary foster placement while courts sorted out parentage.
A little girl.
Seven months old.
Genetically Preston’s.
Mother unknown.
No one had claimed her publicly.
And Gordon Ashford’s attorneys had quietly tried to seal the case.
I stared at the file.
Her name in foster records:
Baby Jane.
I had three babies growing inside me.
Three boys somewhere with Sloane who might genetically be mine.
And a fourth child, Preston’s daughter, sitting inside a legal limbo created by the same men.
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That was how I eventually walked into a wedding two years later with four children.
But first, I had to decide whether I was willing to save a baby who belonged to the man who had let me walk away.
