Chapter 13 - Forty Minutes
Khloe had never given birth to a son.
She had never suffered a miscarriage.
She had never donated an embryo.
Yet the Meridian system identified a living male child as her biological descendant.
“Where is he?” she asked.
Miles smiled.
“You should ask Sebastian.”
Khloe turned toward the corridor camera.
Sebastian heard the accusation through his earpiece.
“I know nothing about a boy.”
Miles enlarged the genetic file.
The child was nine months old.
The maternal DNA belonged to Khloe.
The paternal DNA belonged to Sebastian.
Another embryo had been created during the unauthorized retrieval.
Another surrogate had carried it.
Another child had been hidden.
Khloe’s knees weakened.
Charles caught her arm.
“Who carried him?”
“Damian Holt’s wife,” Miles said.
The missing technology officer had not fled alone.
His wife, Lena Holt, had delivered the child abroad and returned under a false identity.
“Why would Damian help you?”
“Because his daughter needed a transplant.”
Miles spoke as though coercion were a normal business arrangement.
“I provided access to a donor match.”
“And he gave you our son.”
“He gave me system access.”
“The child was collateral.”
Khloe wanted to cross the room and tear the calm expression from Miles’s face.
Instead, she looked at the timer.
Thirty-nine minutes remained before the accelerated reset.
“Where is he?”
“Safe.”
“Show me.”
Miles activated a live video.
A baby boy slept inside a crib.
A woman sat nearby.
Khloe recognized the nursery from Isabella’s photograph.
The child was inside Khloe’s home.
Damian’s wife held him.
A man stood behind her with a weapon.
Miles had converted the Thorne penthouse into another prison.
Sebastian watched from the neonatal corridor.
“I am going home.”
“No,” Khloe said through the earpiece.
“That is what he wants.”
“Our son is there.”
“Verity needs you.”
Sebastian looked down at the transport unit.
The baby’s oxygen level remained unstable.
Miles had placed each child in a different location, forcing them to divide.
“How many embryos?” Khloe asked.
“Four,” Dr. Shaw answered.
“One became Verity.”
“Two became Avery’s twins.”
“The fourth became the boy.”
All embryos were accounted for.
Four stolen lives.
Miles initiated the succession registration.
The system ranked the children by date of conception.
The boy appeared first.
Verity appeared second.
Avery’s twins appeared third and fourth.
Khloe’s unborn daughter appeared last.
Miles selected the boy’s profile.
“As the oldest living biological descendant, he becomes the primary heir.”
“You do not control him,” Khloe said.
“I control his guardian.”
“Who is listed as guardian?”
The screen updated.
ISABELLA ROSSI.
Isabella stared at Miles.
“You told me the guardianship documents were for my father.”
“I told you to sign where indicated.”
Her face hardened.
“You made me the legal mother of a stolen child.”
“I gave you Sebastian’s son.”
She raised the pistol.
Miles pressed a control.
Matteo’s chamber appeared on the screen.
His ventilator alarm began sounding.
“You still have choices, Isabella.”
Her hand trembled.
Mara stood close enough to disarm her but waited.
Khloe understood.
Isabella had to choose voluntarily.
Between the fantasy Miles created and the father she had tried to save.
Between another woman’s child and her own freedom.
Isabella lowered the gun.
“I choose my father.”
Miles smiled.
“Good.”
She aimed at the control panel and fired.
The succession screen shattered.
Mara tackled Miles.
Charles moved toward the original core terminal.
Alarms filled the chamber.
The damaged display did not stop the reset.
Thirty-five minutes remained.
Miles struck Mara’s injured wrist.
She fell.
Isabella fired again, but Miles pulled Avery’s surgical bed between them.
The bullet struck the wall.
Avery cried out as the bed moved.
Her fetal monitors accelerated.
Owen broke one hand free from his restraints.
Jonah kicked a surgical instrument toward him.
Charles reached the core.
“Khloe, I need your biometric signature.”
She pressed her palm to the scanner.
ACCESS DENIED.
“Why?”
Miles laughed while holding Mara’s weapon.
“The system recognizes you as medically incompetent.”
A psychiatric order appeared under Khloe’s name.
It had been signed by Dr. Evelyn Shaw.
Dr. Shaw’s face collapsed when she saw it through Sebastian’s screen.
“I signed a blank emergency form.”
Miles had turned it into a declaration that Khloe suffered delusions and posed a danger to her children.
“As long as the order remains active, Isabella controls the boy,” Miles said.
“And Sebastian controls the other descendants.”
Sebastian’s credentials appeared.
His authority had been suspended by the corporate board.
The system moved to the next guardian.
Miles Thorne.
The reset would give him control over every child.
“Can Dr. Shaw revoke the order?” Khloe asked.
“Only from the primary medical terminal.”
“Where is that?”
Mara pointed toward the other side of the surgical chamber.
Miles stood between Khloe and the terminal.
Thirty-one minutes.
Avery screamed.
A contraction tightened across her abdomen.
Dr. Shaw watched through the camera.
“She is in labor.”
Miles had already administered induction medication.
The twins were coming.
Khloe’s own abdomen tightened in response.
A streak of pain ran through her back.
Charles looked at her.
“Are you bleeding?”
Khloe looked down.
Blood had begun spreading through her dress again.
The placental separation was worsening.
Dr. Shaw shouted through the earpiece.
“Khloe needs surgery.”
“She cannot leave,” Charles said.
“She could hemorrhage.”
Khloe held the edge of the console.
“How long do I have?”
“No one can answer that.”
“Estimate.”
“Minutes or hours.”
Sebastian’s voice broke.
“Khloe, come to the neonatal exit.”
“No.”
“I will come to you.”
“Verity cannot be moved through an unsecured corridor.”
“I am not letting you die in that room.”
“You do not get to decide.”
The old wound between them surfaced even during crisis.
Sebastian closed his eyes.
“You are right.”
Then his voice steadied.
“Tell me what you need.”
Khloe looked at the shattered control panel.
“I need Dr. Shaw at the medical terminal.”
Sebastian handed Verity’s transport unit to a neonatal nurse who had reached the secure exit.
He locked the doors behind them and began running toward the surgical level with Dr. Shaw.
Twenty-seven minutes remained.
Inside the chamber, Miles held Mara’s weapon against Avery’s stomach.
“No one moves.”
Avery’s face was wet with tears.
“Miles, please.”
“You knew the risks.”
“You told me I was helping infertile parents.”
“You believed what made you feel noble.”
Khloe stepped closer.
“Take me instead.”
Miles smiled.
“You still think this is personal.”
“You watched me for years.”
“I studied a key.”
“You introduced me to Sebastian.”
“I aligned the necessary profiles.”
“You helped us fall in love.”
Miles’s expression changed slightly.
“I created conditions.”
“You resented him.”
“I understood him.”
“You wanted to prove his marriage was just another system you could manipulate.”
Miles’s grip tightened.
“He received everything because Celia married Alexander first.”
Sebastian’s voice came from the doorway.
“And you became exactly like him trying to take it.”
Miles turned.
Sebastian struck him.
The weapon discharged into the ceiling.
Mara swept Miles’s legs.
Isabella pulled Avery’s bed away.
Dr. Shaw ran toward the medical terminal.
Miles grabbed a scalpel.
Charles blocked him.
The two men struggled beside the core controls.
Dr. Shaw entered her credentials.
The psychiatric order opened.
Twenty-two minutes.
She selected REVOKE.
The system requested confirmation from the attending physician who had witnessed Khloe’s alleged psychotic episode.
Dr. Alan Reed.
He remained restrained upstairs.
“We need Reed,” Dr. Shaw said.
Mara called the secure floor.
No one answered.
The hospital network displayed another alert.
Dr. Reed had escaped custody.
His badge had entered the executive garage.
Sebastian looked at Miles.
“You planned an exit for him.”
Miles smiled despite blood on his lip.
“I plan exits for everyone.”
Khloe’s pain intensified.
She gripped the surgical table beside Avery.
Avery reached for her hand.
“I think one baby is coming.”
Dr. Shaw examined her.
“She is fully dilated.”
“Can you stop it?” Khloe asked.
“No.”
Avery looked at Khloe.
“What do I do?”
Khloe pressed their hands together.
“You bring them into the world.”
“I am afraid you will hate them.”
“I hate what was done to us.”
Khloe looked at Avery’s stomach.
“I do not hate them.”
Dr. Shaw prepared for emergency delivery.
Sebastian moved toward Khloe as more blood appeared.
“You need to lie down.”
“I need my signature restored.”
Charles reached the core again.
“There is another way.”
“What?”
“An original partner can override the medical order.”
“Then do it.”
“The override permanently identifies me as living.”
Miles laughed from where Mara restrained him.
“Which activates the murder warrant Alexander buried in the system.”
Charles looked at Khloe.
“If I reveal my biometric signature, every person loyal to the old partnership will receive my location.”
“How many?”
“I do not know.”
“Will it restore my authority?”
“Yes.”
Khloe held out her hand.
“Then reveal yourself.”
Charles placed his palm over the scanner.
The system recognized him.
ORIGINAL PARTNER CHARLES VALE CONFIRMED ALIVE.
Across the hospital, hidden alerts activated.
The psychiatric order vanished.
Khloe pressed her palm to the terminal.
PRIMARY SUCCESSOR AUTHORITY RESTORED.
The reset countdown stopped at fourteen minutes.
For one second, everyone believed they had won.
Then the hospital doors locked simultaneously.
A message appeared across every screen.
PARTNER TERMINATION PROTOCOL INITIATED.
Estimated structural purge.
Twelve minutes.
May you like
Charles stared at the warning.
“Alexander installed explosives beneath Sublevel C.”
