Chapter 5 - THE EXPERIMENT THEY TRIED TO ERASEChloe slapped Victor across the face.
The sound echoed through her ruined apartment.
Gabriel instinctively moved forward.
Victor raised one hand.
“Stay back.”
Chloe's eyes burned.
“Your family did this to my brother?”
Victor accepted the accusation without defending himself.
“My father financed Mercy. I knew about the hospital, but not what was happening to those children.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No. I expect you to demand proof.”
He removed a small black notebook from inside his jacket.
“My father kept records. When he died, I inherited them.”
Chloe stared at him.
“You knew about Liam?”
“Not until tonight. The records used numbers instead of names.”
Gabriel connected a secure tablet to Victor's private archive.
Within minutes, an old document appeared.
MERCY RESEARCH PROGRAM.
PATIENT 017.
AGE AT ENROLLMENT: SEVEN.
STATUS: ACTIVE.
Chloe covered her mouth.
Liam had spent most of his childhood in hospitals.
Doctors had blamed a rare immune disorder.
But what if the condition had been deliberately caused?
Victor scrolled through the report.
A payment authorization appeared.
The research director's name had been removed.
The sponsoring organization, however, remained visible.
CALDWELL MEDICAL INITIATIVE.
Chloe whispered, “The senator.”
Gabriel continued searching.
“There's something else.”
He opened the financial records.
Millions of dollars had moved through the program.
Some transfers were directed to shell companies.
Others went into a trust established for a minor.
Victor frowned.
“Whose trust?”
Gabriel looked at Chloe.
“Yours.”
Chloe shook her head.
“I've never had a trust fund.”
Gabriel turned the tablet.
The account had been created when Chloe was thirteen.
Its current balance exceeded eighteen million dollars.
Chloe stared at the number.
“That's impossible.”
Victor examined the authorization.
Then his expression changed.
“Your mother wasn't simply collecting evidence.”
“What was she doing?”
“She was moving money out of the program.”
Chloe's heart pounded.
“Why?”
Gabriel opened the final attachment.
It contained a video recorded by Rebecca Bennett shortly before her supposed death.
Rebecca looked directly into the camera.
“If anything happens to me, Chloe must know the truth.”
She hesitated, tears filling her eyes.
“Liam isn't the only child they experimented on.”
Chloe leaned toward the screen.
May you like
Rebecca whispered one final sentence.
“Chloe, sweetheart, you were Patient Zero.”
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