Chapter 11 - The Laboratory of Stolen Children
Julian dragged Teresa toward the elevator.
“Code.”
She smiled.
“Ask Adrian.”
“I don’t know it.”
“You learned it as a child.”
The timer reached twenty seconds.
A memory struck me.
Teresa teaching me numbers with a song.
Three little kings.
One silver door.
Seven black birds.
Four bells.
Two sleeping wolves.
Nine steps home.
Isabella’s ring.
Not a locker sequence.
A code Teresa had planted in my childhood, perhaps intending me to use it one day.
I entered the numbers.
The elevator opened.
We forced everyone inside as the timer reached eight seconds.
The doors closed.
The explosion lifted the elevator and dropped it violently against its rails.
Grace screamed.
Hope held Julian’s hand.
The emergency brakes caught.
Smoke entered through the ceiling.
“We’re between floors,” Marco said.
Julian opened an access panel.
A ladder ran down the shaft.
We descended one by one.
The laboratory beneath Saint Agnes was still operating.
Generators powered rows of servers. Medical freezers lined the walls. Glass rooms contained cribs, examination chairs, and equipment designed for children.
Elena turned away in horror.
Lucia stared at the labeled files.
“They never stopped.”
Julian restrained Teresa to a chair.
“You will give us the server access.”
“You would expose yourself too.”
“I know.”
That answer altered my view of him.
Julian was not seeking innocence.
He was willing to be judged.
Teresa looked at me.
“He has killed dozens.”
“So have I.”
“He kidnapped children.”
Julian’s fist struck the table.
“I removed them from your facilities.”
“And placed them where you could control them.”
“I placed them with families.”
Teresa smiled.
“You see? Both my sons believe violence becomes virtue when they choose the target.”
I stepped close.
“You are not my mother.”
“I gave birth to you.”
“That was the last thing you ever gave me.”
Something flickered across her face.
Pain.
Or wounded pride.
My mother—Evelyn—stood beside Grace and Hope.
She had raised me through fevers, birthdays, and grief. She had lied to me, betrayed Elena, and concealed Isabella’s secrets.
But motherhood was not one act.
It was thousands of choices.
Some loving.
Some unforgivable.
Teresa had made hers.
Lucia connected an external drive to the server.
“It’s encrypted.”
Julian entered a password.
Access denied.
Teresa watched.
“You never knew me as well as you believed.”
My phone rang through the underground signal relay.
Father Gabriel.
I answered immediately.
“Are the girls safe?”
His voice was strained.
“They were.”
My blood froze.
“What happened?”
“Someone entered the monastery disguised as a state officer. We stopped two men, but a woman reached the west hall.”
“Lily and Sofia?”
“I moved them into the bell tower. We are barricaded, but the attackers are still inside.”
Teresa smiled from the chair.
“Even now, you focus on the wrong facility.”
I pressed the gun against her forehead.
“Call them off.”
“They do not work for me.”
“Then who?”
Her eyes shifted toward Julian.
My brother looked stunned.
“She’s lying.”
“Am I?” Teresa asked. “Who knew the monastery location?”
“Marco,” I said. “Gabriel. Elena. Lucia. Evelyn. Julian.”
“And the guards,” Marco added.
Julian turned to one of his men.
“Contact the teams.”
No response.
All network communication had failed.
A file appeared on the laboratory’s main screen.
LIVE TRANSFER.
A video feed showed the monastery bell tower.
Lily held Sofia beneath the bronze bell.
A masked woman stood outside the barricaded door.
Text appeared:
EXCHANGE THE LEDGER FOR THE GIRLS.
“You said the ledger was in the chapel crypt,” I told Evelyn.
She looked confused.
“It is.”
Teresa laughed.
“The ledger is not a book.”
Lucia stopped working.
“What is it?”
“A biological record.”
Teresa looked toward the medical freezers.
“The Crown’s true power was never names on paper. It was blood.”
Julian opened one freezer.
Hundreds of labeled samples filled the shelves.
Judges.
Senators.
Business leaders.
Children.
Moretti, Adrian.
Moretti, Julian.
Moretti, Lily.
Moretti, Sofia.
“Genetic blackmail,” Lucia whispered. “Paternity secrets. Diseases. Illegitimate children. Predispositions.”
“And engineered evidence,” Elena said.
Teresa nodded proudly.
“With the right sample, we could create scandal, prove false relationships, destroy inheritances.”
That explained the reports claiming my daughters were not mine.
Truth had become something the Crown manufactured.
“The ledger is the database connecting each sample to each crime,” Teresa said. “Isabella copied it.”
“Where?”
Evelyn suddenly understood.
“The music box.”
She reached beneath her coat and removed a small silver cylinder.
“I took the mechanism out years ago because it stopped playing. I kept it.”
Lucia examined it.
Inside the cylinder was a microdrive.
The ledger.
The screen changed.
Ten minutes remained before the attackers breached the bell tower.
Julian looked at me.
“The fastest route is through the river tunnel. It leads to a helipad.”
“How long?”
“Seven minutes to the monastery by air.”
“Then move.”
Lucia began copying the laboratory database.
Marco gathered weapons.
Elena caught my hand.
“You cannot give them the ledger.”
“I won’t.”
“They will kill Lily and Sofia.”
“Not if they believe we are bringing it.”
Julian remained by Teresa.
“I’ll stay.”
I looked at him.
“You’re coming.”
“Someone must destroy the samples.”
“Then set the charges.”
He shook his head.
“The system requires manual confirmation after evacuation. If no one remains, the destruction cancels.”
Teresa stared at him.
“You would die for children who are not yours?”
Julian looked at Grace and Hope.
“Blood is not what makes them mine.”
The words struck all of us.
I gripped my brother’s shoulder.
“We just found each other.”
“We found the truth. That is more than most men get.”
He handed me a small device.
“Take the girls. End the Crown.”
Then alarms began ringing.
The laboratory doors opened automatically.
Dozens of armed Crown operatives entered the corridor.
Julian pushed us toward the tunnel.
“I’ll hold them.”
Teresa screamed as he dragged her toward the server core.
I wanted to stay.
But Lily and Sofia were waiting.
So I made the choice every parent eventually makes.
I left a piece of myself behind to save my children.
As the tunnel door closed, gunfire erupted.
Then Julian’s voice came through the device in my hand.
“Adrian, there is something you must know before I destroy this place.”
I pressed the speaker.
“What?”
“Isabella survived the bridge.”
I stopped running.
May you like
Julian continued.
“And she is the woman inside the monastery.”
