CHAPTER 6: THE CHOICE SHE THOUGHT I WOULD MAKE
The Whitmore estate occupied four hundred acres along the Hudson River.
I had attended holiday dinners there, charity auctions, and private business negotiations. Tessa had once walked me through its gardens and described where she wanted our wedding photographs taken.
Now every mile toward the property felt like an approach to enemy territory.
Gerald insisted on following at a distance.
“Tessa said alone,” I told him.
“Tessa has lied about nearly everything since the day you met her.”
“She’ll hurt Maren.”
“She plans to hurt her whether you obey or not.”
He was right, but fear does not respond to logic.
Before leaving the research campus, we had transferred the rescued children to an independent hospital under state police protection. Dr. Shaw remained with them.
The evidence from the hidden facility had already reached three national newspapers and two international human rights organizations.
By dawn, Conrad’s empire was collapsing.
But Tessa still had Maren and Clara.
That gave her more power over me than billions of dollars ever had.
I entered the Whitmore property at six thirty in the morning.
The security gates stood open.
No guards.
No vehicles.
The mansion appeared silent beneath the gray sky.
Inside, classical music played from hidden speakers.
Tessa sat at the end of the dining room table wearing a red dress.
A full breakfast had been arranged between us.
Coffee.
Fruit.
Warm bread.
The ordinary elegance of the scene was more disturbing than visible violence.
“Sit,” she said.
“Where are they?”
“Safe for the moment.”
“I need to see them.”
“You always need something immediately. That is one of the habits wealth gave you.”
“You kidnapped a woman and a baby.”
“You helped rescue eleven children and now believe you have become moral.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“No?”
“No. I believe I was blind.”
Tessa studied me.
“That sounds like Maren.”
“She tells the truth.”
“She tells the version of truth that makes suffering look noble.”
I remained standing.
Tessa poured coffee.
“Do you remember the first night we met?”
“At the Whitmore Foundation dinner.”
“You were alone on the balcony.”
“I had recently separated from Maren.”
“You looked devastated.”
“I was.”
“I thought you looked available.”
The honesty was almost casual.
“You planned the separation before we met.”
“Of course.”
“Why me?”
“Because you controlled the company that housed the research. Because your father had left hidden safeguards in the corporate structure. Conrad needed a Brooks family signature to authorize the next phase.”
“Our marriage would have given you access.”
“Yes.”
“Did you ever love me?”
Tessa lifted her cup.
“In my way.”
“What does that mean?”
“I enjoyed you. I respected your ambition. I liked the way people looked at us.”
“That isn’t love.”
“Love is usually vanity with better publicity.”
“Where is Maren?”
Tessa sighed.
“You always return to her.”
“She is the mother of my children.”
“She was your wife when you destroyed her.”
The words struck with deliberate precision.
Tessa smiled when she saw the pain.
“Do you know what I admire about Maren? She has never pretended you deserve forgiveness.”
“I haven’t asked for it.”
“You will.”
“Where is she?”
Tessa pressed a button beneath the table.
A wall panel opened, revealing a monitor.
Maren appeared on-screen inside a small stone room. Her wrists were tied. There was blood near her temple, but she was conscious.
“Maren!”
She looked toward a camera.
“Rowan?”
“I’m here.”
Her expression changed from relief to anger.
“You shouldn’t have come.”
Tessa laughed.
“She still thinks she can protect you.”
“Where’s Clara?” Maren demanded.
I looked at Tessa.
She changed the camera feed.
Clara slept inside a medical crib in another room.
Two masked technicians stood nearby.
“Here is the choice,” Tessa said. “You will sign a transfer restoring Whitmore control over Brooks Biomedical and withdraw every accusation against my family.”
“And then?”
“You leave with one of them.”
My hands went cold.
“One?”
“Maren or Clara.”
“You’re insane.”
“I’m practical. If you choose Clara, we keep Maren for continued genetic study. If you choose Maren, we retain Clara.”
“You’ll never leave this country.”
“I don’t need to.”
“What does that mean?”
Tessa checked her watch.
“My father is dead.”
I stared at her.
“He collapsed during the evacuation,” she said. “Leonard attempted treatment, but without Clara’s cells, there was nothing to be done.”
There was no grief in her voice.
“You don’t care.”
“I spent my entire life earning an inheritance he planned to deny me.”
“So now you own everything.”
“Everything he didn’t hide.”
“You still need my signature.”
“Yes.”
“And you expect me to choose between them.”
“I expect you to reveal who you truly are.”
Tessa stood and walked around the table.
“You will choose the child because she carries your blood. You will tell yourself Maren is an adult and can survive. You will tell yourself a father’s duty is greater than a former husband’s loyalty.”
She stopped inches from me.
“And Maren will finally understand that when the cost becomes high enough, you always abandon her.”
I looked at the monitor.
Maren stared toward the camera.
Even now, she did not beg me.
That was what Tessa wanted.
She wanted Maren to watch me repeat the worst moment of our lives.
“Bring me the papers,” I said.
Maren shook her head.
“Rowan, don’t.”
Tessa smiled triumphantly.
An attorney entered with a leather folder.
I sat at the table.
The transfer agreement gave Tessa complete control of Brooks Biomedical, including every research patent, facility, and subsidiary.
I read each page slowly.
“Sign,” Tessa said.
“I need one change.”
“No changes.”
“The Brooks family voting trust requires the transfer to include my personal seal.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“You brought it?”
“It’s in my car.”
“You think I’ll let you leave?”
“Send someone.”
Tessa motioned to a guard.
I gave him my keys and described a black case inside the trunk.
He returned five minutes later.
The case contained my father’s corporate seal.
It also contained a transmitter Gerald had placed inside the handle.
The moment the case entered the mansion, Gerald could track our exact location and intercept the security network.
I stamped the first page.
Then I signed.
Tessa watched every movement.
“Now choose,” she said.
I looked at Maren’s image.
Then Clara’s.
Every instinct screamed to save both.
But Tessa needed to believe she had won.
“I choose Clara.”
Maren closed her eyes.
The sight nearly destroyed me.
Tessa looked disappointed.
“Predictable.”
“I’m sorry,” I said toward the monitor.
Maren opened her eyes again.
There was pain in them.
But beneath the pain was something else.
Understanding.
Because she had noticed my hand.
While signing, I had traced three letters against the table with my finger.
W-S-T.
West service tunnel.
A route Maren and I had seen on the estate plans years earlier when we considered hosting a charity event there.
She knew I had a plan.
Tessa did not.
“Bring the child,” Tessa ordered.
The masked technicians lifted Clara’s crib.
At that moment, the mansion lights flickered.
Gerald had entered the network.
I overturned the dining table.
Coffee and glass crashed across the floor.
The attorney screamed.
I struck the guard with the seal case and ran toward the hidden corridor.
Alarms sounded.
On the monitor, Maren kicked her chair backward, smashing it against the stone wall.
The weakened wood broke.
She freed one hand.
Tessa fired.
The bullet struck the wall beside me.
“You think this changes anything?” she shouted.
I reached the medical room.
One technician ran. The other tried to block me.
I drove him into a cabinet and grabbed Clara.
Gunfire echoed through the mansion.
“Maren!” I shouted.
A service door opened.
She appeared at the end of the corridor, wrists still tied, blood running down one side of her face.
I ran toward her.
Tessa stepped between us.
She aimed the gun at Clara.
“Stop.”
I froze.
Maren stopped too.
Tessa’s eyes were wild now.
“You signed the company over to me.”
“The agreement is void.”
“You chose the child.”
“I chose both.”
“You don’t get both!”
The words tore from her with the rage of a child denied a toy.
“You don’t get the company, the family, the redemption, and the happy ending. That is not how life works.”
“No,” Maren said quietly. “It isn’t.”
Tessa turned toward her.
Maren rushed forward.
The gun fired.
I fell over Clara, shielding her with my body.
For one terrible second, I heard nothing.
Then Tessa collapsed.
Maren stood behind her, holding the broken leg of the chair.
The bullet had struck the ceiling.
Police sirens approached outside.
I reached for Maren.
She pulled away.
“Not yet,” she said.
I looked at her.
She glanced down the corridor.
Smoke poured beneath a locked door.
“Someone else is inside.”
We forced the door open.
A woman lay unconscious on the floor.
She was thin, gray-haired, and connected to an intravenous line.
Maren stared at her.
“No,” she whispered.
“What is it?”
She knelt beside the woman.
Tears filled her eyes.
“This is my mother.”
I remembered Maren telling me her mother had died twenty-three years earlier.
The woman opened her eyes.
She looked at Maren and whispered one name.
“Subject Seven.”
May you like
Then she looked at Clara.
And began to scream.
