CHAPTER 3 — PROJECT EDEN
The emergency room doors flew open around me.
Doctors shouted instructions as the stretcher rolled through a maze of white corridors. Someone cut through the front of my pale blue dress. Another nurse placed monitors across my chest.
I barely felt the cold instruments.
All I could think about was Project Eden.
Someone inside Ashford Memorial Hospital knew the raid had started.
And they were destroying evidence while my baby’s life hung in the balance.
“Blood pressure is dropping,” a nurse called.
“Fetal heart rate is one-ten and falling.”
A doctor leaned over me. His badge read DR. SAMUEL REEVES.
“Mara, I’m Dr. Reeves. The impact may have caused your placenta to separate from the uterine wall. We need to deliver your baby immediately.”
“Is she going to live?”
“We have a neonatal team waiting.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
His eyes softened, but his voice remained urgent.
“It’s the only chance for both of you.”
A clipboard appeared beside me.
My hand trembled as I signed.
Before they wheeled me toward surgery, I caught Agent Brooks by the sleeve.
“Do not let anyone from the Ashford family make medical decisions for me.”
“They won’t.”
“Not even Daniel.”
“He’s in federal custody.”
“There are people inside this hospital who work for Victor.”
“I have agents on every floor.”
I shook my head.
“You don’t understand. The Ashfords own the hospital’s private security company. They own the laboratory that processes genetic tests. They fund half the obstetrics department.”
Dr. Reeves looked sharply at me.
“What genetic tests?”
The anesthesia mask hovered above my face.
I had seconds before the medication pulled me under.
“Project Eden,” I whispered. “Look for Dr. Malcolm Voss.”
Dr. Reeves went pale.
Then darkness swallowed me.
I woke to the sound of rain.
For a moment, I believed I was home. I imagined Daniel beside me, one hand resting against my stomach as our unborn daughter kicked beneath his palm.
Then pain returned.
My abdomen felt hollow.
A monitor beeped near my head.
The room was dim, and rain tapped against a narrow window.
My hands moved immediately toward my stomach.
The swelling was gone.
“No.”
I tried to sit up, but fire tore through the incision.
A nurse rushed in.
“Easy, Mara. You’ve had surgery.”
“My baby.”
“She’s alive.”
The words broke something inside me.
I covered my face and sobbed.
The nurse sat beside me.
“She was born at 2:41 p.m. She weighs four pounds, three ounces. She needs help breathing, but she’s fighting.”
“A girl?”
“A beautiful little girl.”
“I need to see her.”
“We can take you to the neonatal intensive care unit once your blood pressure stabilizes.”
“Now.”
“Mara—”
“Please.”
Thirty minutes later, the nurse pushed my wheelchair through the NICU doors.
Rows of incubators glowed beneath gentle blue light. Machines whispered and chimed. Nurses moved with quiet precision, caring for infants who looked impossibly small.
My daughter rested inside the third incubator.
A breathing tube covered part of her face. Wires crossed her tiny chest. One hand, no larger than a flower petal, curled beside her cheek.
I pressed my palm against the clear plastic wall.
“Hi, little one.”
Her fingers twitched.
The nurse adjusted a blanket.
“Have you chosen a name?”
I had.
I had chosen it months earlier, though Daniel had dismissed it as old-fashioned.
“Elena,” I whispered. “Her name is Elena.”
The nurse smiled.
“She’s strong.”
I watched Elena’s chest rise and fall.
“She has to be.”
A shadow moved in the glass behind me.
Agent Brooks entered with Dr. Reeves.
The doctor looked exhausted.
He also looked afraid.
“We need to speak privately,” Brooks said.
I refused to leave Elena, so they stood beside the incubator and lowered their voices.
Dr. Reeves opened a tablet.
“You mentioned Dr. Malcolm Voss before surgery.”
“He ran my fertility treatment.”
“He was listed as the director of reproductive medicine here until three years ago. According to hospital records, he resigned.”
“He didn’t resign. Victor moved him to a private research facility.”
Dr. Reeves scrolled through the screen.
“There is no private facility associated with the hospital.”
“Not officially.”
Agent Brooks watched me carefully.
“What exactly happened during your treatment?”
I looked at Elena.
For six years, Daniel and I had tried to have a child. I endured injections, surgeries, failed implantations, and repeated miscarriages. Every time I wanted to stop, Daniel told me I owed his family an heir.
Then Dr. Voss offered an experimental procedure.
He said it involved improved embryo screening.
He promised it was safe.
Three months later, I became pregnant.
“I signed consent forms for genetic testing,” I said. “But the documents I found in Victor’s files showed they altered the treatment protocol after I signed.”
Dr. Reeves frowned.
“Altered how?”
“They used something called E-47.”
He stopped scrolling.
The color drained from his face.
“You know what that is?” Brooks asked.
“I’ve heard rumors,” he replied. “E-47 was an experimental embryo-editing process developed overseas. It was never approved for human use in the United States.”
My fingers tightened against the incubator.
“What did they do to my baby?”
“We don’t know that they did anything,” Dr. Reeves said quickly. “A notation in a financial file isn’t proof.”
“It listed my patient number.”
Agent Brooks opened a folder.
“We recovered a partial spreadsheet before the files were deleted. Mara’s number appears beside six other patients.”
“Where are those women?” I asked.
Brooks hesitated.
“That is what we are trying to determine.”
The hesitation told me enough.
“They’re dead?”
“Two died from complications during pregnancy. One died in what police classified as a car accident. Two moved without forwarding addresses. The sixth woman is alive.”
“Who?”
Brooks looked toward the NICU entrance.
A woman stood there in a hospital gown and gray robe.
She appeared to be in her early thirties, though exhaustion had carved deep shadows beneath her eyes. A surgical scar crossed the side of her neck. She held the hand of a little boy wearing a knitted cap.
“This is Nora Bell,” Brooks said. “Her son, Jamie, was born through Project Eden four years ago.”
Nora approached slowly.
Her eyes filled with tears when she saw Elena.
“They told me I was the only one,” she said.
I looked at Jamie.
He had a pale, delicate face and dark brown eyes. A portable oxygen tube ran beneath his nose.
“What happened to him?”
Nora pulled the child closer.
“He was healthy when he was born. At eighteen months, his bone marrow started failing. The doctors called it an unexplained genetic disorder.”
Dr. Reeves stared at the boy.
“And you believe it was caused by E-47?”
“I don’t believe it,” Nora said. “I know it.”
She removed a flash drive from the pocket of her robe.
“Dr. Voss kept records. I stole this from his office two years ago.”
Agent Brooks reached for it.
Nora stepped back.
“No.”
“We need that evidence.”
“I tried to give evidence to the police before. Two days later, my house burned down.”
Brooks lowered her hand.
“I’m not the local police.”
Nora looked at me.
“I came because I saw the news. I saw them take Victor Ashford away.”
“What’s on the drive?” I asked.
“Patient files. Videos. Lab reports.”
“Then why haven’t you released them?”
“Because Voss took my daughter.”
The NICU suddenly felt colder.
“You have another child?” Brooks asked.
Nora nodded.
“Lily was six when I discovered the truth. Voss threatened me. He said if I exposed Project Eden, I would never see her again.”
“That was two years ago?”
“Yes.”
“You never reported the kidnapping?”
“He made it look like her father took her overseas. My ex-husband worked for Ashford Global. Every document was legal. Every officer told me it was a custody dispute.”
Jamie coughed weakly beside her.
Nora looked down at him.
“I stayed silent because I had one child left.”
I understood her fear.
I had known Elena for less than an hour, and I already knew I would burn down the world to protect her.
Agent Brooks held out her hand again.
“We can protect you.”
Nora’s expression became bitter.
“No one can protect us from people like the Ashfords.”
“They’re not untouchable anymore,” I said.
She looked at me.
I pointed toward the television mounted above the nurses’ station.
Victor’s arrest played across the screen. Reporters crowded outside the Ashford mansion. The company’s stock price scrolled across the bottom.
It had fallen thirty-eight percent in less than two hours.
“Their empire is already collapsing,” I said. “But we need to make sure they can never rebuild it.”
Nora’s fingers tightened around the drive.
Then she placed it in my hand.
“There’s one more thing.”
“What?”
“Daniel wasn’t just aware of Project Eden.”
My heart slowed.
“He recruited patients,” Nora said. “Women he dated before you. Women he promised to marry.”
“That’s impossible.”
Nora reached into her robe again and removed a photograph.
Daniel stood beside Dr. Voss in a laboratory. Both men wore medical identification badges. Behind them, a screen displayed the Project Eden logo.
The date printed in the corner was seven years earlier.
One year before Daniel met me.
On the back of the photograph, someone had written a sentence in black ink.
SUBJECT M-12 SELECTED.
M was the patient code used in my file.
I turned the photograph over with shaking hands.
“Daniel didn’t fall in love with me.”
Nora’s silence confirmed what I already knew.
Dr. Reeves looked toward Elena.
“He selected you because of your genetics.”
A sharp alarm suddenly sounded from Elena’s incubator.
The nurses rushed forward.
“What’s happening?” I demanded.
Dr. Reeves moved beside them.
“Her oxygen level is falling.”
One nurse checked the IV line.
Then she froze.
“This medication isn’t ours.”
Dr. Reeves grabbed the syringe attached to Elena’s line.
A clear liquid remained inside.
“Who connected this?” he shouted.
No one answered.
Agent Brooks drew her weapon and turned toward the door.
A man wearing hospital scrubs stood at the far end of the hallway.
For one second, he looked directly at me.
I recognized his silver hair.
May you like
Dr. Malcolm Voss smiled.
Then he ran.
