Chapter 4 - MY FATHER’S SECOND LIFE
Marcus lost the motorcycles beneath an underground parking structure.
Thirty minutes later, we arrived at a townhouse with no visible number.
Inside, everything was quiet.
Clean.
Protected.
Luka led me upstairs to a bedroom where a bassinet had already been prepared.
I stopped in the doorway.
“You expected a baby?”
“No.”
“Then why is this here?”
“My sister has children.”
It was the first personal thing Luka had said about himself.
He placed the flash drive from the hospital into an offline laptop.
A password box appeared.
Luka entered six numbers.
The file opened.
I stared at him.
“How did you know the password?”
“Your birthday.”
I felt sick.
Folders appeared across the screen.
M-17.
HART.
VALE RESEARCH.
SUCCESSION STUDY.
Luka opened the first file.
My father’s photograph appeared.
Not the smiling man I remembered.
This photograph showed him younger, wearing a security badge.
MICHAEL HART.
DIRECTOR OF FINANCIAL OVERSIGHT.
MERIDIAN BIOMEDICAL PROGRAM.
“What was Meridian?”
Luka leaned back.
“A private research network funded by several wealthy families.”
“What kind of research?”
“Genetic disease prevention at first.”
“At first?”
His eyes moved to my daughter.
“Then they discovered something valuable.”
The files described a rare hereditary marker.
Not a disease.
A genetic trait associated with extraordinary resistance to a neurological disorder that had devastated several powerful bloodlines.
The research group had spent decades searching for compatible carriers.
My father discovered that the program had crossed ethical lines.
People were being tested without consent.
Medical files were altered.
Marriages were quietly encouraged.
Pregnancies were monitored.
I stopped reading.
“No.”
Luka said nothing.
“Daniel and I met in college.”
“Yes.”
“He couldn’t have been arranged.”
Luka opened another document.
A photograph appeared.
Daniel was nineteen.
Beside his picture were the words:
PREFERRED CONTACT CANDIDATE.
My mouth went dry.
“They chose him.”
Luka nodded.
My marriage had not begun with chance.
Someone had put Daniel in my path.
I felt something inside me collapse.
“But why?”
Luka opened the final page.
Because my father had stolen evidence from Meridian and disappeared before exposing it.
Years later, the network found me.
They could not locate what Michael had stolen.
So they watched his daughter instead.
Then Luka opened one more document.
It was dated three days before my father supposedly died.
At the bottom was a handwritten sentence.
IF THEY EVER FIND ELENA, CONTACT LUKA MORETTI.
I stared at him.
“My father knew you.”
Luka’s face became unreadable.
“He was the reason I’m alive.”
I touched the screen.
“Then tell me how he died.”
Luka looked away.
That was the moment I understood.
He knew.
“You were there.”
His silence answered me.
I stood so quickly the chair fell backward.
“How did my father die?”
May you like
Luka finally looked at me.
“He didn’t.”
