Chapter 6 - The Heartbeat Trap
Mara ordered everyone away from the wheelchair.
Owen’s timer displayed fifty-two seconds.
The wire around his chest ran into a device beneath the chair.
A matching signal flashed on Khloe’s fetal monitor.
Sebastian reached for the monitor’s power cord.
“Do not unplug it,” Mara warned.
“Why?”
“The system may interpret a loss of signal as a trigger.”
Owen’s breathing came in shallow bursts.
“They connected it to the hospital network.”
Gabriel crouched several feet away.
“What does the device do?”
“Electrical charge.”
Owen’s voice shook.
“If Khloe’s monitor disconnects, it fires through the chair.”
Khloe looked at the timer.
Forty-four seconds.
“And when the timer reaches zero?”
“The monitor sends the charge to her bed.”
Sebastian’s face became deadly still.
“They want us to choose.”
Mara examined the transmitter.
“Or panic.”
She looked toward Khloe.
“Is the external drive still inside your bracelet?”
“Yes.”
“Remove it.”
Khloe pulled at the plastic band.
Her fingers trembled.
Sebastian helped open the tracking compartment.
Mara took the drive.
Thirty-five seconds.
“The attacker copied the fetal monitor’s wireless frequency.”
Mara inserted the drive into Gabriel’s black device.
“What are you doing?” Sebastian asked.
“The original security footage was encrypted through a local emergency key.”
She connected a cable from the device to the fetal monitor.
“That same key may allow me to override the signal.”
“May?”
“Unless you have a better option.”
Twenty-eight seconds.
Owen looked at Khloe.
“I am sorry.”
“For what?”
“I should have told you everything before your wedding.”
“Stay awake.”
“I thought hiding the trust would protect you.”
Twenty seconds.
The fetal monitor emitted a long tone.
Khloe’s daughter’s heartbeat disappeared from the screen.
“No,” Khloe whispered.
Dr. Shaw was gone.
No obstetrician stood beside her.
Sebastian pressed his hand against Khloe’s stomach as though he could feel the heartbeat himself.
Mara typed commands into the black device.
Ten seconds.
Owen closed his eyes.
Gabriel gripped the wheelchair handles.
“Do not touch it,” Mara snapped.
Five seconds.
The monitor screen flashed.
Three.
Two.
One.
The lights went black.
Khloe heard Sebastian pull her against him.
A sharp crack came from the wheelchair.
Then silence.
Emergency lights returned.
Owen was still breathing.
The fetal monitor restarted.
A rapid heartbeat filled the room.
Khloe collapsed against Sebastian.
Mara removed the cable.
“I redirected the trigger into the elevator control panel.”
Smoke curled from the open shaft.
Gabriel began cutting the wires around Owen.
A medical team rushed inside.
They lifted him from the wheelchair and placed him on a stretcher.
“His wounds are superficial,” one doctor said.
“He has lost blood, but not enough to explain his condition.”
Owen grabbed Khloe’s wrist before they carried him away.
“Do not trust Gabriel.”
Gabriel heard him.
His face did not change.
“Why?” Khloe asked.
Owen’s eyes moved toward the black device.
“He was there the night your mother died.”
The medical team wheeled him out.
Khloe turned toward Gabriel.
“Is that true?”
“Yes.”
Sebastian stepped between them.
“How did she die?”
Gabriel closed the document case.
“Officially, an aneurysm.”
“And actually?”
“She was poisoned.”
Khloe felt the old grief reopen.
Her mother had collapsed during a private dinner at the Vale estate.
Khloe had been told death came instantly.
“She was murdered?”
Gabriel nodded.
“By whom?”
“I do not know.”
“Owen thinks you know.”
“Owen suspects me because I disappeared afterward.”
“Why did you disappear?”
“Because the poison was found in a glass bearing my fingerprints.”
Sebastian’s gaze hardened.
“You fled.”
“I followed Eleanor’s instructions.”
“Dead women do not give instructions.”
Gabriel reached into the document case and removed a sealed envelope.
The front bore Khloe’s name in her mother’s handwriting.
Khloe recognized every curve.
“Eleanor prepared letters for several possible outcomes.”
Gabriel handed it to her.
“She knew someone inside the partnership would eventually move against her.”
Khloe opened the envelope.
My dearest Khloe,
If Gabriel gives you this letter, then the protection surrounding you has failed.
Do not mistake secrecy for lack of love.
Everything I hid was hidden because powerful men believed your blood belonged to them.
Charles is not the man you remember burying.
Alexander is not merely your husband’s father.
The child you carry will become the legal key to a war that began before you were born.
Do not surrender the trust.
Do not enter Sublevel C alone.
Most importantly, do not believe the first recording you see.
Khloe stopped reading.
“What recording?”
Gabriel looked toward the security screen.
“I do not know.”
A news broadcast began playing automatically on the television.
Isabella appeared outside the hospital.
She wore a white coat over the crimson gown.
Celia stood beside her.
Reporters shouted questions.
Isabella lifted a trembling hand.
“I never wanted to speak publicly.”
Her performance had become softer.
More restrained.
More convincing.
“But I can no longer remain silent while another woman’s instability places an innocent child in danger.”
Khloe’s face appeared beside Isabella’s on the screen.
The broadcast played a security recording from inside the suite.
It showed Khloe stepping toward Isabella.
The angle concealed the shove.
The sound had been replaced.
Khloe’s fabricated voice threatened Isabella.
Then Isabella appeared to raise her leg defensively.
The video ended before Khloe struck the marble table.
The editing was almost flawless.
Sebastian called his public relations director.
No answer.
He called the company’s legal department.
No answer.
Then his phone displayed an emergency board notification.
THORNE MERIDIAN LEADERSHIP REVIEW.
“Who called the meeting?” Khloe asked.
“Miles.”
“When?”
“Thirty minutes from now.”
A second alert appeared.
Sebastian’s access to corporate accounts had been suspended.
His company credit cards were frozen.
His executive authority had been temporarily transferred to the chief financial officer.
Miles had used the public scandal to begin a coup.
Isabella continued speaking on television.
“I care deeply about Sebastian.”
Khloe watched her lower her eyes.
“I wish Khloe peace and treatment.”
A reporter shouted, “Are you carrying Sebastian Thorne’s child?”
Isabella placed one hand over her abdomen.
Celia looked straight into the camera.
“No further questions.”
The crowd erupted.
Khloe stared at Isabella’s hand.
“She is not pregnant.”
Gabriel’s expression was unreadable.
“How do you know?”
“She drank champagne all night.”
“She pretended to drink it.”
Sebastian looked sick.
“She told me she was pregnant three days ago.”
Khloe turned toward him.
“You left that out.”
“I did not believe her.”
“Did you ask for a test?”
“She sent medical records.”
“From this hospital?”
“Yes.”
Mara searched the records system through the isolated laptop.
“There is a positive pregnancy file under Isabella Rossi.”
Khloe felt the room constrict.
Sebastian spoke quickly.
“If she is pregnant, the child is not mine.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
Khloe held his gaze.
This time, he did not hesitate.
Mara opened the attached laboratory report.
“The sample was processed fourteen weeks ago.”
Sebastian stared at her.
“That is impossible.”
Khloe calculated silently.
Isabella would have become pregnant near the time of the winter benefit.
The night Khloe had collapsed.
The night doctors had performed a procedure she had never authorized.
“Open the genetic profile,” Gabriel said.
Mara did.
The file listed Isabella as the patient.
The DNA markers did not belong to Isabella.
They belonged to Khloe.
Khloe gripped the bed rail.
“Someone used my genetic sample.”
Mara scrolled farther.
A second profile identified the father.
Sebastian Thorne.
Sebastian stepped backward.
Khloe could barely form the question.
“How can Isabella be carrying a child created from our DNA?”
Gabriel looked toward the hidden elevator.
“She cannot.”
“Then whose pregnancy file is this?”
A printer activated across the room.
No one had touched it.
A single ultrasound image slid onto the tray.
The patient name read ISABELLA ROSSI.
The image showed two fetuses.
May you like
A message appeared beneath them.
YOUR DAUGHTER IS NOT THE ONLY HEIR.
