Chapter 9 - Eleven Forty-Two
Eleanor Vale and Alexander Thorne had died five years apart.
According to their official records, both deaths occurred at 11:42 p.m.
Khloe had never noticed.
Neither death certificate listed an exact time in the copies given to the families.
Miles had access to the originals.
“What happens Friday at 11:42?” Khloe asked.
Celia looked toward the window.
“The succession system resets.”
Gabriel’s face tightened.
“Alexander built a timed failsafe.”
Celia nodded.
“Every year on the anniversary of his death, the Meridian core verifies all primary bloodline claims.”
“And Friday is the anniversary,” Khloe said.
“If the new heirs are entered before 11:42, the system assigns control based on biological priority.”
“What if no new heirs are entered?”
“Your mother’s trust activates through your daughter when you reach thirty weeks.”
Khloe understood why Miles had chosen this week.
He needed Avery’s twins born before the annual reset.
He needed Khloe’s daughter removed or disqualified.
The attack had been intended to force an early delivery, kill the baby, or pressure Khloe into surrendering the trust.
“What happens if I expose the illegal embryos?” Khloe asked.
Celia shook her head.
“Public scandal will not stop the automated verification.”
“Then we shut down the system.”
Gabriel looked toward the floor.
“The core is beneath Sublevel C.”
Khloe remembered her mother’s warning.
Do not enter Sublevel C alone.
“That is where they are taking Avery.”
“Most likely.”
Celia stepped closer.
“Miles will induce labor.”
“At twenty-one weeks?”
“The twins may not survive.”
“He only needs viable tissue and a registered heartbeat.”
The cruelty of it silenced the room.
Miles did not need healthy babies.
He needed biological keys.
Khloe looked at the clock.
They had approximately sixty-four hours.
Her phone rang.
Avery’s name appeared.
Khloe answered.
“Avery?”
Only static responded.
Then Miles spoke.
“I understand Celia finally confessed.”
Celia moved toward the phone.
“Miles, listen to me.”
“I listened to you for thirty-eight years.”
His voice remained calm.
“You taught me that survival belonged to the child who was useful.”
Celia’s face broke.
“I protected you.”
“You hid me.”
“You were Alexander’s son.”
“And Sebastian was his legitimate prince.”
Sebastian’s voice came through Mara’s open line.
“Where is Avery?”
Miles laughed.
“My little brother finally sounds awake.”
“Let her go.”
“She volunteered.”
Avery cried out in the background.
“That is a lie!”
Miles silenced her.
Khloe leaned toward the phone.
“What do you want me to sign?”
“A temporary renunciation.”
“Send it.”
Celia stared at her.
Miles paused.
“That was easy.”
“I want proof that Dr. Shaw, Jonah, Owen, and Avery are alive.”
“You have already seen proof.”
“I want them live.”
A video connection opened.
Dr. Shaw appeared first.
A bruise darkened her face.
Jonah sat beside her.
Owen was conscious but weak.
Avery lay on a medical bed.
Her stomach looked much larger than Khloe expected.
Hormone treatments and two fetuses had advanced the visible pregnancy rapidly.
“They told me twenty-one weeks,” Avery whispered.
Dr. Shaw shook her head.
“The records were altered.”
“How far along is she?”
“Twenty-eight weeks.”
Khloe stared at the screen.
The embryos had been transferred before her own daughter was conceived.
The twins were biologically older.
Miles had already positioned them as her first children.
Avery began crying.
“I did not know.”
Khloe forced herself to remain calm.
“Where are you?”
The camera moved.
Concrete walls.
Blue stripe.
Medical gas ports.
A clock identical to the one in the photograph.
Sublevel C.
They had been beneath the hospital all along.
Miles stepped into view.
He resembled Sebastian around the eyes, though his expression was colder.
“Send the renunciation to Owen.”
“You control Owen.”
“He is still your attorney.”
Owen lifted his head.
“Do not sign.”
Miles struck the back of his chair.
Khloe flinched.
“Send it,” she repeated.
A document appeared on Gabriel’s device.
It transferred all rights from Khloe and her biological descendants to Miles Thorne.
“The wording includes every child created from my genetic material.”
“Of course.”
“What happens to Avery after I sign?”
“She receives excellent medical care.”
“And Isabella?”
Miles smiled.
“Isabella receives the life she believes she deserves.”
The video ended.
Celia grabbed Khloe’s hand.
“You cannot sign.”
“You told me to renounce the trust.”
“Not to Miles.”
“Who did you expect to receive it?”
“Sebastian.”
Khloe looked at her husband through the active call.
He had returned to the hospital and was entering the secure floor.
Sebastian stepped into the room seconds later.
He looked at the document.
“Transfer it to me.”
Khloe studied him.
“If I sign control to you, Miles loses his reason to keep the hostages alive.”
“We can add conditions.”
“He controls the network verifying them.”
Gabriel examined the legal language.
“There may be another option.”
“What?”
“Accept the twins.”
Khloe looked at him.
“They were created without my consent.”
“Legally acknowledge them as your children.”
Avery stared through the frozen video image.
Gabriel continued.
“The trust protects all of Eleanor’s descendants once accepted by the primary successor.”
“Would that stop Miles?”
“It would prevent him from isolating the original-partner child as a separate claimant.”
“The child created from my mother would legally become my sibling and my child?”
“Genetically your sibling.”
“Gestationally Avery’s.”
“Legally yours, if you claim the embryo theft and assume parentage.”
The situation was grotesque.
It was also the only path that treated the unborn babies as human beings rather than keys.
Khloe opened the trust interface.
A section titled DISPUTED BIOLOGICAL DESCENDANTS appeared.
She entered the known genetic profiles.
Three unborn children appeared.
Her daughter.
Twin A.
Twin B.
The system requested names.
Khloe paused.
Miles had reduced them to markers.
She would begin by giving them identities.
She named Twin A Hope.
She named Twin B Charles.
Sebastian looked at her.
“After your father?”
“After the man who raised me, whether he is alive or dead.”
She pressed ACCEPT PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY.
The system processed the claim.
A warning appeared.
ONE DESCENDANT PROFILE CONTAINS PROHIBITED PARTNERSHIP DNA.
“What does that mean?” Khloe asked.
Gabriel read the original trust code.
“Eleanor added a restriction.”
“Against a child created from her and Alexander?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“She must have feared exactly this.”
The system requested a living witness from the original partnership.
Alexander was dead.
Eleanor was dead.
Charles was presumed dead.
Khloe looked at the gold ring in the photograph.
“One of them is my father.”
The message had not meant one of the hostages.
It meant one of the original partners was still alive.
Charles.
They needed him to validate the twins and block Miles.
“How do we find a man who has been dead for nineteen years?” Sebastian asked.
Celia answered.
“We ask Isabella’s father.”
Matteo Rossi had financed the original laboratory.
He had also disappeared from public life after a stroke seven years earlier.
Officially, he lived under private medical care in Lake Como.
Celia shook her head.
“He is not in Italy.”
“Where is he?” Khloe asked.
“In the hospital morgue.”
Mara had reported Alexander’s credential entering the morgue.
Sebastian stared at his mother.
“You hid Matteo Rossi beneath St. Aurelia?”
“Alexander did.”
“Why?”
“Because Matteo knew Charles survived.”
Khloe stood despite the pain.
“We are going to the morgue.”
Dr. Reed entered as the fetal monitor accelerated.
“You are not going anywhere.”
Khloe removed the intravenous line from her arm.
“Then bring the morgue to me.”
A gunshot sounded outside.
One of the guards fell against the observation window.
The glass cracked.
The second guard drew his weapon.
A smoke canister rolled through the doorway.
Sebastian pulled Khloe behind the bed.
Gabriel dragged Celia toward the bathroom.
Masked men entered through the service corridor.
Their uniforms bore the insignia of Rossi International.
The first man aimed at Khloe.
The second moved toward the fetal monitor.
Before either could fire, Isabella stepped through the smoke.
She wore black gloves and carried a pistol.
“Do not damage her stomach,” she ordered.
May you like
She looked directly at Khloe.
“Miles needs the baby alive.”
