Chapter 8 - MY FATHER’S LAST WARNING
I read the letter three times.
My father apologized for secrets I had never known existed.
He wrote that Victor Hale had created a hidden reproductive program using unlawfully obtained genetic material.
He wrote that Dr. Pike helped manipulate digital records.
He wrote that Vanessa Hale had begun working in the clinic’s administrative department shortly before my father died.
Then I reached the paragraph about Ethan.
My hands stopped moving.
If the man you marry is connected to Hale, do not assume coincidence.
I looked at Rachel.
“What does that mean?”
She shook her head.
“I never saw the contents.”
Luka stood beside the conference table.
“Keep reading.”
The next lines were worse.
My father had met Ethan Bennett when Ethan was nineteen.
Victor Hale had brought him to Saint Vincent as part of a legal internship.
My father believed Ethan had accidentally seen records connected to M-17.
Years later, Ethan met me at a charity event.
I had always thought our meeting was fate.
Now I wondered if he had known exactly who I was.
“No.”
I stood too quickly.
Pain pulled through my abdomen.
Luka caught my elbow.
I jerked away.
“Don’t.”
He immediately released me.
“I’m sorry.”
“I need to know whether my entire marriage was arranged.”
Rachel connected the flash drive to an offline computer.
A password screen appeared.
One question.
WHAT DID AVA CALL THE STARS?
I started crying before I could stop myself.
My father used to take me onto the roof of our apartment building when I was little.
I couldn’t pronounce “constellations.”
I called them sky maps.
I typed it.
SKYMAPS.
The drive opened.
Folders appeared.
HALE.
PIKE.
M-17.
BENNETT.
My husband had his own folder.
I clicked it.
Scanned documents filled the screen.
Emails.
Payments.
Clinic authorizations.
One document had Ethan’s signature.
AUTHORIZED USE OF SELECTED DONOR MATERIAL.
The date was eight months before our wedding.
My blood turned cold.
“He planned it before we married.”
Rachel leaned toward the screen.
Then she frowned.
“Wait.”
She opened another document.
It was a background report.
On me.
My employment.
My apartment.
My college schedule.
Even photographs taken from across the street.
The report was commissioned by Ethan Bennett.
Six weeks before he introduced himself to me.
I couldn’t breathe.
Luka slammed one hand against the table.
The sound made everyone jump.
“He targeted her.”
Rachel stared at the screen.
“Yes.”
I remembered Ethan approaching me with two glasses of champagne.
His charming smile.
His joke about nearly spilling one.
The way he claimed he had seen me across the room and simply had to meet me.
Every romantic memory collapsed at once.
My phone rang.
Ethan.
I almost ignored it.
Then I answered.
“Did you know who I was before we met?”
Silence.
That was enough.
I closed my eyes.
“You did.”
“Ava, your father misunderstood—”
“You investigated me.”
“I needed to know whether you had his files.”
My heart broke with astonishing quietness.
“So you married me to find them.”
“It wasn’t like that at the end.”
“At the end?”
“I fell in love with you.”
“Then why did you leave me today?”
Ethan started crying.
May you like
I had never heard him cry.
“Because Vanessa told me the baby’s DNA would expose everything.”
