CHAPTER 7 — THE BOARDROOM TRAP
Leo saw the blood before I could stop him.
His fingers tightened around mine.
“Is that real?”
Rachel stepped forward and examined the envelope without touching it.
“It could be animal blood. It could be theatrical. It is meant to frighten us.”
“It worked,” I said.
Sophie scanned the room with her weapon drawn.
“No movement.”
Charles opened a hidden wall panel near the boardroom entrance.
A red light flashed above a keypad.
“Security lockdown.”
My father tried the elevator button.
Nothing happened.
The doors remained sealed.
Grant’s voice came through the ceiling speakers.
“Welcome home, Emma.”
I looked toward the cameras.
“Show yourself.”
“I’m disappointed you brought so many people.”
“You tried to kill us.”
“I tried to keep a private family matter private.”
Rachel moved toward the control console.
“The building network is isolated.”
Grant continued.
“Place the tablet and Charles’s documents on the table. Then send Leo into the hallway.”
I pulled Leo closer.
“No.”
“Then the oxygen level in this room will begin to drop.”
A mechanical hiss sounded above us.
Sophie looked toward the vents.
“He’s flooding the room with something.”
Rachel took a small sensor from her bag.
“Carbon dioxide.”
My mother stared upward.
“How long do we have?”
“Ten minutes before confusion. Longer before unconsciousness.”
Grant’s voice returned.
“You always said you would do anything for your son, Emma. Prove it.”
I moved toward the camera.
“You already have the company. Why do you need the drive?”
“Because ownership is temporary. Evidence lasts.”
“And why Leo?”
No answer.
“Why do you want my son?”
The silence lasted too long.
Charles looked at me.
“He needs a blood sample.”
“For what?”
Charles’s expression became grim.
“The trust requires genetic confirmation from Samuel’s direct descendant. Grant cannot permanently assume control unless Emma and Leo are declared ineligible or dead.”
My father’s face twisted.
“So he plans to kill them.”
“No,” Rachel said. “Killing them before verification could trigger automatic transfer to another heir.”
Sophie looked toward Charles.
“Me.”
“Yes.”
Sophie understood.
“He needs Leo’s blood to fabricate a disqualifying result.”
Grant’s voice came through the speakers.
“Charles always did enjoy making simple matters dramatic.”
Rachel tested the boardroom windows.
Sealed glass.
No exits.
Leo walked toward the table.
I caught his arm.
“What are you doing?”
“He wants me.”
“No.”
“If I go into the hallway, maybe he opens the door.”
“You are not trading yourself for us.”
“But you traded everything for me.”
The words broke something inside me.
I knelt.
“That was my choice as your mother. You do not owe me repayment.”
His eyes filled.
“I don’t want you to die.”
“I’m not going to.”
I looked around the boardroom.
Grant had planned the trap carefully.
But arrogance made people overlook small things.
The conference table contained built-in electrical ports.
The ceiling had fire sprinklers.
The cameras relied on power.
“Rachel, can you overload the table circuit?”
“Possibly.”
“If we trigger a fire alarm, the building should automatically unlock.”
“Unless Grant disabled it.”
“Would he risk trapping his board members during a real fire?”
Charles smiled faintly.
“He believes he’s immortal, not stupid.”
Rachel opened the console beneath the table.
Sophie removed a metal paper clip and handed it to her.
“What can I do?” my father asked.
“Break the sprinkler head,” Rachel replied.
He grabbed a chair.
Grant’s voice sharpened.
“Stop.”
My father swung the chair upward.
The first strike missed.
The second shattered the glass bulb beneath the sprinkler.
Water exploded across the room.
At the same time, Rachel crossed two wires beneath the table.
Sparks erupted.
The alarm sounded.
Emergency lights flashed.
The boardroom doors unlocked.
Sophie pulled them open.
Fresh air flooded inside.
“Move!” she shouted.
We ran into the hallway.
Two armed security officers waited near the corner.
Sophie fired into the ceiling.
“Drop your weapons!”
One complied.
The other aimed at me.
My mother shoved Leo behind a marble column.
My father tackled the guard.
They crashed into the wall.
The gun skidded across the floor.
Charles kicked it away.
Rachel handcuffed the guard using plastic restraints from her bag.
I stared at her.
“Do all attorneys carry those?”
“Only the prepared ones.”
We reached the executive stairwell.
On the floor below, footsteps rushed upward.
More guards.
Sophie pointed toward another corridor.
“Private elevators.”
Charles entered a six-digit code.
The elevator opened.
“How do you know the code?” I asked.
“Samuel’s birthday.”
Inside, Rachel pressed the underground parking level.
Grant’s voice spoke through the elevator speaker.
“You think this ends downstairs?”
The elevator stopped between floors.
Lights flickered.
Leo looked up.
“He’s controlling it.”
Sophie opened the emergency panel.
“Can we climb out?”
“Not safely.”
Grant continued.
“Emma, you have spent ten years believing Ethan died to protect you.”
My chest tightened.
“He did.”
“No. Ethan died because he tried to betray you.”
I stared at the speaker.
“You’re lying.”
“He came to me the night he died.”
Charles looked confused.
“That isn’t possible.”
Grant’s voice became almost tender.
“He offered me the adoption documents and the trust file in exchange for money.”
“No.”
“He was planning to leave you.”
“Stop.”
“He said the pregnancy had ruined his life.”
“Stop!”
Leo covered his ears.
My mother held him.
Grant played an audio clip.
Ethan’s voice filled the elevator.
“I’ll give you everything. The trust papers, the files, all of it. I just need enough money to disappear.”
My knees weakened.
It was Ethan’s voice.
Then Grant answered in the recording.
“What about Emma?”
“She made her choice.”
The clip ended.
I could not breathe.
Leo looked at me.
“Was that Dad?”
Rachel touched my shoulder.
“Audio can be altered.”
Charles looked less certain.
“The technology was less advanced ten years ago.”
“Recordings could still be edited.”
Grant spoke.
“Ethan was not a hero. He was a frightened boy who wanted to escape.”
I pressed my palm against the elevator wall.
Memories flooded me.
Ethan promising we would leave Ohio.
Ethan holding my face and saying he loved me.
Ethan giving me the drive.
Ethan disappearing into the rain six hours before his death.
Had I built ten years of sacrifice around a lie?
Leo stepped toward the speaker.
“You’re lying.”
Grant laughed.
“What makes you so certain?”
“Because Dad knew Mom was pregnant.”
“Yes.”
“And the recording said he needed money to disappear.”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t he ask for money for her too?”
Grant became silent.
Leo continued.
“If he wanted to leave Mom, he wouldn’t give her the evidence that could make you chase her forever.”
I stared at my son.
Grant’s silence deepened.
Leo looked at me.
“He wanted Uncle Grant to believe he was betraying you.”
Charles’s eyes widened.
“A diversion.”
Rachel understood.
“Ethan offered Grant false files to pull attention away from Emma.”
The elevator jolted.
Then began descending.
Grant’s voice returned, stripped of warmth.
“The boy is clever.”
The doors opened into the underground garage.
Grant stood thirty feet away.
He held a pistol against Rosa Alvarez’s head.
I had not even realized Rosa had been separated from us during the rush through the executive floor.
Her hands were bound.
Grant’s guards surrounded them.
“Cleverness,” Grant said, “is rarely enough.”
He pressed the weapon harder against Rosa’s temple.
“Tablet and documents.”
Rachel held the tablet close.
“No.”
Grant smiled.
“Rosa knows where Julia hid the original laboratory records.”
Rosa looked at me.
“Don’t give him anything.”
Grant struck her across the face.
Leo stepped forward.
“Stop!”
I caught him.
Grant’s gaze settled on my son.
“There you are.”
Sophie aimed her weapon.
“Let her go.”
Grant looked at her.
“You are not my daughter.”
“I know.”
“You are nothing.”
Sophie’s face tightened, but her gun did not move.
Grant pulled Rosa toward a black armored vehicle.
“Follow us, and she dies.”
The garage doors opened.
His convoy sped away.
Rachel looked toward the security cameras.
“We can track the vehicle through the company system.”
Charles shook his head.
“Grant will disable it.”
Leo walked toward the bloodstained envelope, which had somehow been moved from the boardroom and placed on the hood of a nearby car.
“Mom.”
I opened it carefully.
Inside was a photograph of an abandoned medical facility.
On the back, someone had written an address.
Charles recognized it.
“Walker Research Center.”
Rachel frowned.
“That building burned nine years ago.”
“Only the public wing,” Charles said. “The underground laboratory survived.”
My father looked toward the ramp where Grant had disappeared.
“He wants us to follow.”
“Yes,” I replied.
My mother touched the bruise forming on her cheek from the chaos upstairs.
“It’s a trap.”
I looked at the address again.
“Then we make sure he catches more than he expected.”
Rachel began contacting the federal prosecutor who had received copies of the drive’s evidence.
Sophie called the deputies who had arrested Doyle.
Charles contacted former company employees.
My father stood silently beside me.
“Emma,” he said, “you should stay here with Leo.”
I looked at him.
“For ten years, everyone made decisions about my life without me.”
“I’m trying to protect you.”
“No. You’re trying to erase your guilt by becoming brave at the last minute.”
He lowered his eyes.
The truth hurt him.
It needed to.
I handed Leo’s backpack to my mother.
“You stay with him.”
Leo immediately objected.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“But Rosa protected me.”
“And now I’m going to help her.”
“You said we don’t trade ourselves.”
“We don’t. We build a better plan.”
He looked at me for a long moment.
Then he removed the flash drive from his jacket.
“You’ll need this.”
I placed it in Rachel’s tablet case.
Leo hugged me.
“Come back.”
“I will.”
As I turned away, he whispered, “Mom?”
I looked back.
“When you find Grant, ask him what happened to the other babies.”
The garage became silent.
“What other babies?”
Leo pointed toward the files displayed on Rachel’s tablet.
“I saw the patient list.”
Rachel opened the folder.
Beneath the forty-seven adult names was another directory we had missed.
PEDIATRIC NEONATAL TRIAL — SUBJECTS 001–026.
My mother covered her mouth.
Rachel opened the first record.
The screen displayed a newborn infant with a hospital bracelet.
The child’s name had been replaced by a number.
But beneath the photograph was a genetic designation.
SAMUEL WALKER BLOODLINE MATCH.
Charles whispered, “Grant wasn’t just testing medicine.”
“What was he doing?” Sophie asked.
Rachel scrolled through the data.
Her expression turned to horror.
“He was trying to create a synthetic genetic substitute.”
I looked at the twenty-six infant records.
“Why?”
Charles understood first.
“To manufacture an heir he could control.”
One file remained active.
Subject 026.
Current status: living.
Current age: ten.
Leo stared at the screen.
The child in the photograph had the same crescent-shaped birthmark beneath his left ear.
The same as Leo.
But the baby was not Leo.
Grant’s voice suddenly came through the garage speakers.
“You brought me one heir, Emma.”
The screen changed to a live video feed.
A ten-year-old boy sat alone inside a glass laboratory room.
He looked almost exactly like my son.
May you like
Grant stepped into the frame behind him.
“But I made another.”
