Chapter 9 - THE CHILDREN WHO EXISTED ON PAPER
Vanessa’s triplets survived.
Small.
Fragile.
Beautiful.
Richard never reached them.
A judge granted temporary protective custody to Vanessa pending the criminal investigation.
Adrian helped finance her legal defense.
For the first time, I believed he might actually be trying to repair what his family had lost.
Meanwhile, investigators searched for Richard’s second clinic.
The clue came from an old insurance invoice.
A company owned property in New Jersey under the name Halcyon Biomedical.
Daniel found the purchase records.
Adrian recognized the address.
“That was Elias’s original lab.”
We went with federal investigators.
The building looked abandoned from outside.
Inside, it was fully operational.
Empty of staff.
Recently evacuated.
They had left equipment.
Files.
Freezers.
Records.
One room contained genetic storage tanks.
Another contained embryo inventory logs.
I stood beside Agent Warren while she scrolled.
Hundreds of entries.
Then I saw my initials.
EB.
Twenty-seven ova collected.
Nineteen fertilized.
Fourteen embryos considered viable.
I nearly collapsed.
Fourteen.
“These belong to me.”
“Yes,” Agent Warren said carefully.
“They were created without my permission.”
“Yes.”
“With Julian.”
“Most appear to use his samples.”
“Most?”
She scrolled.
Two had another donor code.
WH-01.
Richard.
My stomach turned.
Richard had fertilized my eggs with his own genetic material.
Without consent.
Without my knowledge.
I felt violated in a way I did not have language for.
Julian stood behind me.
When he saw the code, he punched the wall.
“Julian.”
He turned away.
“I’m sorry.”
Not to me.
To himself.
To the room.
To every decision that brought us here.
The embryos were placed under court protection.
No one could use, destroy, or transfer them without judicial approval.
I wanted them destroyed.
Then I didn’t.
Then I hated myself for not knowing.
They were potential lives created through violation.
There was no simple emotional answer.
I postponed the decision.
For once, I allowed myself not to know.
The files revealed more.
Richard had planned multiple surrogate pregnancies.
Some records dated years before Vanessa.
He had been trying to create male heirs using selected genetic combinations.
Most attempts failed.
Vanessa’s triplets were the first successful triple implantation.
My current pregnancy was the first successful natural conception following Protocol Elias.
Richard considered it a scientific breakthrough.
He had documented my children before I even knew they existed.
Subject EB-JW natural conception event.
I wanted to burn every page.
Then Agent Warren found something else.
A birth record.
Twenty-nine years old.
Female infant.
Embryo code WH-01/Bennett.
I froze.
“Who is that?”
The record had no public name.
Only a surrogate code.
Live birth.
Female.
Healthy.
Transferred to private guardians.
My breathing changed.
Richard had created a child using his genetic material and a Bennett donor decades earlier.
“Which Bennett?”
Agent Warren scrolled.
Then stopped.
Laura Bennett.
My mother.
The room tilted.
“My mother had another child?”
“Genetically, yes.”
The embryo used my mother’s egg and Richard’s sperm.
Meaning somewhere in the world, I had a half-sister.
And she was also Richard’s daughter.
Julian stared at the screen.
“That would make her—”
“My sister.”
“And technically my legal aunt if we follow the Whitmore family.”
I nearly laughed from sheer exhaustion.
Agent Warren continued searching.
There was a placement record.
The infant had been adopted privately.
Name changed.
Guardians deceased.
Current identity?
Sealed.
Daniel used a court order to access it.
The result arrived that evening.
I read the name.
Then read it again.
May you like
My half-sister had been in front of me for months.
Vanessa Cole.
