My hands moved instinctively to my stomach.
Chapter 3
PART 3 - THE TWINS, ADRIAN VOSS, AND THE HIDDEN EMBRYOS
3,430 words
“What about them?”
“The embryos implanted six months ago were catalogued under your name.”
“Yes.”
“But I ordered independent genetic verification after what we discovered.”
A terrible pressure formed behind my ribs.
“Why?”
“Because Simon manipulated embryo records.”
“And?”
Evelyn placed a sealed report between us.
“The twins are biologically related to you.”
I exhaled.
“Then what’s the problem?”
Her face remained pale.
“They are also biologically related to Gideon.”
I frowned.
“Of course they are. He’s my brother.”
“No.”
Her voice was almost inaudible.
“Not in the way they should be.”
Gideon slowly stood.
“What are you saying?”
Evelyn looked at him.
“The laboratory found that the paternal genetic contribution to Rachel’s embryos matches your DNA.”
Nobody moved.
I heard the ticking of the wall clock.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
I shook my head.
“That’s impossible.”
Gideon’s chair scraped backward.
“I never donated.”
“I know.”
“I never gave any
clinic permission to use my genetic material.”
“I know.”
“Then rerun the test.”
“They did.”
“How many times?”
“Three.”
My body went cold.
“The embryos were created years ago,” I whispered.
“Yes.”
“With Simon.”
“That is what you were told.”
I stared at Gideon.
He looked horrified.
Not guilty.
Horrified.
Evelyn continued.
“Someone substituted the paternal genetic material before fertilization.”
“Who?”
“We don’t know.”
“Why?”
“We don’t know.”
I stood.
The room tilted.
Gideon moved toward me, then stopped himself.
He knew better now than to touch me without asking.
I pressed both hands over my stomach.
Two heartbeats.
Two babies.
Mine.
But genetically—
No.
I could not finish the thought.
Then Evelyn’s phone rang.
She answered.
Listened.
Her face changed.
“What?”
She stepped toward the window.
“When?”
Another pause.
“Are you certain?”
She disconnected.
Gideon looked at her.
“Who was that?”
“The federal detention center.”
“What about it?”
“Simon
requested protective custody.”
I laughed bitterly.
“From whom?”
Evelyn’s expression tightened.
“He says someone tried to kill him last night.”
Gideon’s eyes narrowed.
“Who?”
“He wouldn’t identify the person.”
“Then why did they call you?”
“Because Simon gave them a message.”
“For me?”
“No.”
She looked at me.
“For Rachel.”
Every hair on my arms stood.
“What message?”
Evelyn hesitated.
Then repeated Simon’s words.
“Tell my wife I finally understand why Gideon moved across the road.”
The air disappeared from the room.
Gideon stepped forward.
“What does that mean?”
“There’s more.”
Evelyn swallowed.
“He said Rachel was never the target.”
I stared at her.
“Then who was?”
Her eyes moved toward my stomach.
“The children.”
Silence.
I could hear my heartbeat.
Then Gideon’s phone buzzed.
One message.
Unknown number.
He opened it.
His face went white.
“What?”
He turned the screen toward us.
There was a photograph.
Old.
Faded.
Taken
inside a hospital nursery.
Two newborn babies lay in separate bassinets.
A woman stood between them.
Simon’s mother.
Lorraine.
Behind the photograph, someone had written three names.
Edmund.
Gideon.
Rachel.
Underneath the picture was a new message.
ROOM SEVEN WAS NEVER CLOSED.
Then another message arrived.
A video.
Timestamped eight minutes earlier.
Gideon pressed play.
The footage showed the corridor outside my old fertility clinic.
The lights were off.
Someone walked toward a door at the end of the hallway.
Room 7.
The camera shifted.
A hand entered a code.
The door opened.
Inside were rows of cryogenic storage tanks.
Then the person holding the camera moved toward one container.
A label came into focus.
CROFT GENETIC PROGRAM.
Gideon stopped breathing.
The camera moved lower.
Three storage canisters.
The first bore Gideon’s name.
The second bore mine.
The third bore a name I had never seen before.
BABY C.
The video ended.
Nobody spoke.
Then Evelyn whispered, “There were three of you.”
I stared at the frozen screen.
“What?”
“The photograph.”
She zoomed in.
I saw it then.
Behind Lorraine, almost hidden by the edge of the frame, was a third bassinet.
Empty.
Except for one folded blanket.
And a tiny identification card.
Evelyn enlarged the image until the handwriting became visible.
INFANT C — TRANSFERRED.
I felt my entire world shift again.
Gideon stared at the screen.
“If Rachel and I were part of the same program…”
He couldn’t finish.
Evelyn could.
“Then someone may have been manipulating the Croft bloodline for decades.”
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I almost didn’t answer.
Then I remembered Simon’s message.
The children.
I pressed the phone to my ear.
“Hello?”
For three seconds, there was only breathing.
Then a man spoke.
An older man.
Calm.
Educated.
Familiar.
“Rachel.”
My blood turned to ice.
I knew that voice.
I had heard it hundreds of times in clinic rooms while sitting on examination tables beneath fluorescent lights.
Dr. Everett Colson.
Edmund Croft.
The man who was supposed to be missing.
The man who may have helped create me.
“Congratulations on the twins,” he said.
My knees weakened.
Gideon saw my face.
“Who is it?”
I couldn’t answer.
The voice continued.
“I’m afraid my brother has told you only half the story.”
My eyes locked on Gideon.
“What story?”
The man chuckled softly.
“The reason Simon was infertile.”
A cold sensation spread through me.
“What did you do to him?”
“Simon?”
He sounded almost amused.
“Nothing.”
“Then what are you talking about?”
There was a pause.
Then he said the sentence that shattered everything we thought we understood.
“Simon was never meant to have children, Rachel.”
My hand began shaking.
“Why?”
“Because Simon was the control group.”
Gideon grabbed a pen and began writing instructions to Evelyn.
Trace the call.
I kept listening.
“And me?”
I asked.
The man became quiet.
When he answered, his voice had changed.
Less clinical.
Almost affectionate.
“You were the successful result.”
I couldn’t speak.
He continued.
“But Gideon ruined the schedule when he bought that farmhouse.”
“You knew he was watching us.”
“Of course.”
“Then why didn’t you stop him?”
Another soft laugh.
“Because we needed him near you.”
My eyes moved toward Gideon.
He looked as confused as I felt.
“Why?”
The answer came slowly.
“Because eventually you would need his DNA.”
My hand dropped toward my stomach.
The room became utterly silent.
“You created these embryos.”
“Yes.”
“Without my consent.”
“Yes.”
“Using Gideon’s genetic material.”
“Yes.”
Gideon grabbed the phone.
“You sick bastard.”
For the first time, the voice on the other end lost its amusement.
“Hello, little brother.”
“Where are you?”
“You’ll know soon.”
“What do you want?”
“The same thing Father wanted.”
Gideon went still.
“What?”
“A living heir who carries both lines.”
His eyes dropped toward my stomach.
I felt suddenly sick.
“You mean the twins,” Gideon whispered.
“No.”
The answer came immediately.
“No?”
The man laughed.
Then said, “The twins are only the second generation.”
Nobody in the room breathed.
“What does that mean?” I demanded.
“You still haven’t asked the most important question.”
“What question?”
“Who Baby C became.”
The call disconnected.
Evelyn cursed and stared at her computer.
“They bounced the signal through four states.”
Gideon looked toward me.
But I was still staring at the photograph.
Three bassinets.
Three babies.
Gideon.
Rachel.
Baby C.
Something about the image bothered me.
Not the empty bassinet.
Not Lorraine.
Something else.
I picked up the original photograph.
Turned it over.
There was writing beneath the names.
Almost erased.
I held it toward the light.
A date.
Thirty-eight years ago.
My chest tightened.
“That’s impossible.”
Gideon looked at me.
“What?”
I pointed.
“This photo was taken ten years before I was born.”
Evelyn froze.
Then she pulled my birth certificate from the file.
My date of birth.
Twenty-eight years ago.
The photograph.
Thirty-eight years ago.
A ten-year difference.
Unless—
“No,” I whispered.
Evelyn began searching records.
Birth certificates.
Hospital archives.
Social Security registrations.
My mother’s records.
Then she stopped.
There were two Rachel Merritts.
One born thirty-eight years ago.
One born twenty-eight years ago.
The older one had died at nine years old.
No photograph existed.
No death certificate existed either.
Only a notation:
IDENTITY REASSIGNED.
Gideon’s voice dropped.
“Rachel…”
I looked at him.
He looked terrified.
Not for himself.
For me.
Evelyn opened one final file.
An adoption seal had been broken by federal warrant.
Inside was a photograph.
My mother, Anne Merritt.
Holding a newborn baby.
Me.
Beside her stood another woman.
Clara Croft.
Gideon’s late wife.
I stopped breathing.
On the back, someone had written:
BABY C DELIVERED SUCCESSFULLY.
And beneath it:
RACHEL PROTOCOL — PHASE TWO APPROVED.
That was when I understood the worst possibility of all.
Baby C might not have been a third child.
Baby C might have been me.
And if the photograph from thirty-eight years ago showed the beginning of the experiment, then my entire identity—my birthday, my mother, even the history of my own conception—might have been manufactured.
But before I could say any of that aloud, Evelyn’s computer chimed.
A secure federal alert had arrived.
She read it.
Her face emptied.
“What?” Gideon demanded.
She looked at me.
“They found Simon’s attacker.”
“Who?”
Evelyn swallowed.
“He surrendered voluntarily.”
“Name?”
She turned the screen.
A booking photograph appeared.
Gray hair.
Expensive suit.
Cold eyes.
I had seen that face before.
Not in person.
In portraits throughout the Croft Center.
Beneath the photograph was the name:
ELIAS CROFT.
Gideon stumbled backward.
“No.”
His father.
Dead for twelve years.
Except apparently, he wasn’t.
And according to the federal intake report, Elias Croft had surrendered with only one statement.
He would speak to no agent.
No attorney.
No judge.
Only me.
Because, he said, I was the only person alive who deserved to know what had really happened in Room Seven.
Gideon had stared down armed men, corrupt judges, frightened witnesses, and criminals who had spent fortunes trying to erase their own names.
But when he saw the name beneath Madelyn’s prenatal DNA report, his face changed.
Not dramatically.
That would have frightened me less.
Instead, every trace of warmth disappeared from his expression, leaving behind the cold precision of the man the agents outside had called Director Croft.
I looked from him to the file.
“Who is Adrian Voss?”
Gideon closed the folder.
“Someone who was supposed to be dead.”
The kitchen suddenly felt smaller.
Outside, rain whispered against the windows. Gideon’s old dog, Truman, lifted his head from beside the stove as though even he sensed the shift in the room.
I folded my arms around myself.
“You’re going to have to give me more than that.”
Gideon studied me for a moment.
Then he nodded.
“Fifteen years ago, Adrian Voss owned a network of private fertility clinics, surgical centers, and medical laboratories across four states. On paper, he was a philanthropist.”
“And in reality?”
“He bought doctors. Judges. Hospital administrators. Insurance investigators. Anyone who could make inconvenient records disappear.”
My stomach tightened.
“Simon knew him?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“That means yes.”
Gideon almost smiled.
Almost.
Then he opened the folder again.
“Voss disappeared before we could indict him. His car was found burned beside a river. Blood inside matched him.”
“But no body.”
“No body.”
I looked at Madelyn’s test.
“And now her baby’s DNA points to him?”
“Yes.”
A chill crawled over my skin.
“That doesn’t make sense. Madelyn is twenty-eight.”
“Voss would be sixty-one.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know.”
He walked to the window.
Across the road, Simon’s former house—our former house—stood dark except for the porch light. I had spent years looking at that house as though it represented security.
Now it looked like a stage after the audience had left.
Gideon spoke quietly.
“Madelyn didn’t meet Simon by accident.”
The words landed harder than I expected.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying we checked her employment history.”
He slid another sheet toward me.
Madelyn had worked for Simon for eighteen months.
Before that, she had been employed by a medical consulting company.
Before that—
Voss Biomedical Holdings.
I stared at the page.
“But you said Adrian Voss was dead.”
“The company survived him.”
“Who owns it now?”
Gideon’s eyes met mine.
“That’s what disturbed me.”
He turned over another page.
The current registered majority shareholder was hidden behind several shell companies.
But the final beneficial owner was listed under one familiar name.
Simon Mercer.
I sat down.
The room tilted.
“My husband owned Voss’s company?”
“Part of it.”
“He told me his money came from commercial property investments.”
“Some of it did.”
Gideon paused.
“The rest came from clinics.”
I thought about Simon’s suits.
His sudden business trips.
The private calls he always took on the patio.
The strange anger whenever I questioned our fertility treatment bills.
And then I remembered something.
“There was a doctor.”
Gideon turned.
“What doctor?”
“Three years ago. During my fourth treatment cycle. Simon insisted we switch specialists.”
“What was his name?”
“I don’t remember. Dr. Vale. Vail. Something like that.”
Gideon froze.
“Elias Vale?”
“Yes.”
For the first time, I saw genuine alarm in Gideon Croft’s eyes.
He reached for his phone.
“Lock the doors.”
My pulse jumped.
“Why?”
“Madelyn’s DNA test wasn’t the only thing hidden in that clinic.”
He was already dialing.
“What are you talking about?”
Gideon looked at me.
“Dr. Elias Vale was Adrian Voss’s partner.”
Before he could say anything else, headlights appeared outside.
Not three government vehicles this time.
One black sedan.
It stopped across the road.
In front of Simon’s house.
A man stepped out.
Tall.
Silver-haired.
Elegant.
He looked toward Gideon’s farmhouse.
Even from that distance, I could feel his attention settle on us.
Gideon whispered one sentence.
“Adrian Voss is alive.”
By sunrise, Gideon’s farmhouse no longer looked like the home of a lonely retired sheriff.
It looked like a command center.
Agents moved through the kitchen carrying laptops and sealed evidence boxes. Two unmarked vehicles sat behind the barn. A surveillance team occupied the upstairs bedroom.
And Gideon?
Gideon stood at the kitchen counter making scrambled eggs.
I stared at him.
“There are twelve federal agents in your house.”
“Fourteen.”
“You’re cooking breakfast.”
“They’re terrible cooks.”
One of the agents glanced over.
“That is slander, sir.”
For the first time in twenty-four hours, I laughed.
It came out unexpectedly.
Gideon looked at me.
And something in his face softened.
Then a phone rang.
The softness vanished.
An agent named Ruiz answered.
“Director.”
She handed Gideon the phone.
He listened.
“What hospital?”
His jaw tightened.
“We’re coming.”
He ended the call.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Madelyn collapsed.”
I should have hated her.
For months, she had been the symbol of everything Simon used to humiliate me.
Her pregnancy.
Her photographs.
Her smiling captions about miracles.
But sitting outside her hospital room two hours later, I heard someone crying inside.
Not Simon.
Madelyn.
A nurse opened the door.
“She’s asking for Mrs. Mercer.”
I hesitated.
Gideon said nothing.
He never told me what choice to make.
That was one thing I had begun to understand about him.
Gideon opened doors. He did not push me through them.
I walked inside.
Madelyn looked smaller without makeup and expensive clothes.
Her hands trembled over the blanket.
“Simon said you were obsessed with him,” she whispered.
I almost laughed.
Instead, I pulled a chair beside the bed.
“Simon says many things.”
Her eyes filled.
“He told me you refused to give him children.”
The cruelty of that sentence should have wounded me.
Instead, I felt tired.
“He knew he had severe infertility.”
Madelyn went pale.
“No.”
“He knew for years.”
“No.”
“The baby isn’t Simon’s.”
Her mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Then she began shaking her head.
“That’s impossible.”
“Madelyn.”
“I never cheated.”
I studied her face.
The fear there was real.
Something cold moved through me.
“What do you mean?”
“I never slept with anyone except Simon.”
My heart began pounding.
“Were you receiving fertility treatment?”
Her eyes flicked toward the door.
That was enough.
“Madelyn.”
She whispered, “Simon said we needed help because of stress.”
I went still.
“What kind of help?”
“An insemination procedure.”
The room seemed to disappear around me.
“Where?”
“Vale Reproductive Institute.”
Dr. Elias Vale.
I stood so quickly the chair scraped backward.
Madelyn grabbed my wrist.
“Please.”
I looked down at her.
“What?”
She was crying openly now.
“Simon told me the donor material was his.”
Outside the room, Gideon was already speaking to Ruiz.
He had heard enough.
Within an hour, agents obtained emergency warrants.
Within six, they found the first cryogenic storage room.
Within ten, Gideon returned to the hospital holding a sealed report.
He did not sit down.
“Madelyn,” he said carefully, “the embryo used in your procedure was created using your egg.”
She swallowed.
“And Simon?”
“No.”
Her hand went instinctively to her stomach.
“Then Adrian Voss?”
Gideon’s expression hardened.
“Also no.”
I frowned.
“But the prenatal screening—”
“Was altered.”
Silence.
Madelyn whispered, “Why?”
“Because someone wanted us to believe Voss fathered your child.”
“Who?”
Gideon placed another document on the bed.
The original laboratory result had been recovered from an offline backup.
The biological father was identified through a familial database match.
Dr. Elias Vale.
Madelyn screamed.
Not loudly.
It was worse than that.
A small, broken sound escaped her.
I reached for her hand before I even thought about it.
Gideon turned away.
His shoulders were rigid.
That afternoon, Dr. Vale disappeared.
Simon disappeared with him.
And by evening, every television station in Maryland was reporting that federal investigators had raided three fertility clinics.
But none of them knew the most terrifying part.
Gideon’s team had found hundreds of altered embryo records.
Mine was among them.
The call came at 2:17 in the morning.
I was asleep in Gideon’s guest room when someone knocked softly.
“Mara?”
Only Gideon called me that.
Simon always used Marianne when he wanted something and Mari when other people were listening.
Gideon somehow understood that Mara belonged only to me.
I opened the door.
He looked exhausted.
“What happened?”
“We found your embryos.”
I stopped breathing.
Six years of grief crashed through me at once.
“What?”
“The clinic told you the remaining embryos from your third cycle were nonviable.”
“Yes.”
“They weren’t.”
My knees weakened.
Gideon caught my elbow.
“Where are they?”
“In secured storage.”
“All this time?”
“Yes.”
I covered my mouth.
I remembered that cycle.
Twelve eggs retrieved.
Seven fertilized.
Two transferred.
Five supposedly stopped developing.
I had cried for days.
Simon had held me.
Simon had told me perhaps motherhood simply was not meant for me.
And five tiny beginnings had remained frozen while I mourned them.
“Why?”
Gideon did not answer immediately.
“Because Vale’s network was using select embryos in experimental genetic screening trials.”
My stomach turned.
“Without consent?”
“Yes.”
“Mine?”
“Yours were scheduled for transfer into a research program.”
“Scheduled?”
“They were never used.”
“Why not?”
Gideon gave a grim smile.
“Someone removed them from the program years ago.”
“Who?”
He looked toward the window.
“Me.”
I stared at him.
“You?”
“I couldn’t legally reveal the investigation.”
“You knew?”
“I knew embryos connected to several patients were being moved illegally. I ordered them seized and preserved as evidence.”
“You saved them?”
“I preserved evidence.”
His voice was deliberately clinical.
But I knew him better now.
“You saved them.”
Gideon looked away.
For years, I had imagined my body as a graveyard of failed possibilities.
Now five embryos existed.
Five chances Simon had let me believe were dead.
I began crying.
Not elegantly.
Not quietly.
Gideon stood there as though unsure what to do.
Then I stepped forward and put my arms around him.
He froze.
For one heartbeat.
Then his arms closed carefully around me.
I felt his cheek against my hair.
Neither of us spoke.
Weeks passed.
Simon remained missing.
Dr. Vale’s accounts were frozen.
Adrian Voss was arrested after investigators discovered the man seen outside Simon’s house had indeed been Voss—but his return carried one final complication.
He had not come to help Vale.
He had come to destroy him.
Voss had spent fifteen years hiding after discovering Vale was running unauthorized reproductive experiments using Voss’s companies.
The criminal mastermind Gideon had hunted had become the witness Gideon never expected to find.
Voss handed investigators documents.
Names.
Bank transfers.
Video recordings.
And one recording shattered what remained of my marriage.
Simon sat across from Vale in a private clinic office.
The timestamp showed the conversation happened three years earlier.
Simon leaned back and said, casually:
“As long as Mara thinks the problem is hers, she’ll keep trying.”
Vale replied, “Eventually she’ll stop.”
Simon laughed.
“She won’t. She wants a child too badly.”
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