Chapter 10 - The Child Charles Had Already Claimed
Mara’s hand went instinctively to her belly.
“What did you say?”
Charles smiled without pleasure.
“You heard me.”
Julian moved in front of her.
“You do not know whether the baby is a boy or a girl.”
“I know the medical records.”
Mara remembered the forged psychiatric report, the doctor’s needle, the way Charles had spoken of declaring her unfit. He had access to more than the letters. He had been building a file on her pregnancy from the beginning.
“You had someone at my clinic,” she said.
“Your clinic was not difficult to access.”
Lena drew her weapon.
“Put the gun down.”
Pike fired first. The bullet struck Lena’s shoulder, spinning her into the wall. Simon shoved Mara behind the desk while Julian tackled Pike. Charles seized Elena by the throat and pulled her against his chest.
“One move,” he warned,
“and your mother dies.”
Julian froze. Pike struck him with the pistol. He fell hard against the depot floor. Mara saw the blood at his temple and forced herself not to scream.
Panic would make her predictable. Charles wanted Julian helpless, Elena as leverage, and Mara frightened enough to surrender. He had forgotten that she had spent five months learning how to survive without anyone coming to save her.
“You said my daughter was not,” Mara said.
“What does that mean?”
Charles’s attention shifted to her.
“The pregnancy records show a previous loss.”
Mara went cold. She had miscarried once, years earlier, before she met Julian. She had told no one in the Hartwell family except Beatrice, who had found her crying in a bathroom after a charity dinner. It had been a private grief, not a medical condition.
“You stole my records.”
“I obtained them legally.”
“You falsified them.”
“A woman with a history of instability and pregnancy loss is easy to discredit.”
“You don’t know the sex of my child.”
“I know what the report says.”
Mara understood. The phrase was bait, meant to make her wonder whether Charles had some detail that could only come from the clinic. He did not know the baby’s sex. He knew only what could frighten her.
She looked at Julian. His eyes were open. Though blood ran down his cheek, he was watching her, waiting. Mara lifted both hands.
“Let Elena go, and I will come with you.”
Julian’s expression sharpened. He understood the plan before Charles did. Charles released Elena just enough for Mara to move.
“Walk toward me.”
Mara stepped around the desk. Her left hand brushed the edge of the old terminal. The upload cable remained connected. A green light blinked beneath the desk.
The files had not gone to Nora alone. They were still transmitting through the depot network. Lena, conscious despite the blood on her shirt, saw the light. Her gaze met Mara’s for half a second.
Mara took another step.
“You wanted the trust,” she said.
“You could have let Julian acknowledge the baby.”
“The trust requires a guardian I control.”
“You planned to take my child.”
“I planned to prevent an unfit mother from destroying a legacy.”
“You planned to raise my baby as a Hartwell.”
Charles’s mouth tightened.
“The child belongs to the family.”
“No,” Julian said from the floor.
“The child belongs to Mara.”
Pike kicked him in the ribs. Mara’s fear became something clean and bright. She reached the desk and grabbed the metal telephone receiver. Instead of throwing it, she slammed it against the old fire alarm mounted on the wall.
The alarm exploded into sound. Sprinklers burst overhead. Water drenched the room. Charles recoiled.
Elena drove her elbow into his ribs and twisted free. Mara seized the terminal cable and pulled. The screen went dark. Pike turned toward her.
Lena fired. The shot struck Pike’s hand, sending the gun skidding across the floor. Julian rose with a grimace and kicked it beneath the desk. Simon ran for the tunnel entrance.
Charles lunged after him, but Elena caught the back of his coat.
“You are not taking another person from me,” she said.
He shoved her into the wall. Mara reached Charles and struck him with the telephone receiver. He staggered, stunned. Julian grabbed his arm and forced him to the floor.
For one breath, it seemed over. Then Charles laughed.
“Ask your father,” he said to Mara,
“why he never told you about the baby’s first heartbeat.”
Mara froze. Simon had gone pale.
“What is he talking about?”
Charles looked at Simon.
“Tell her where the child came from.”
Julian stared at Mara. She felt the world tilt. Charles continued,
“Tell her the pregnancy was not an accident. Tell her what you did with the sample.”
Simon shook his head.
“He is lying.”
“Am I?” Charles said.
The depot alarm screamed around them. Sirens approached in the distance. Mara looked from her father to Julian. Her pregnancy had been conceived with Julian.
She knew that. There had been no medical procedure, no donor, no secret sample. But Charles was not speaking to establish facts. He was trying to make every intimate certainty feel contaminated.
Then Simon said something that made her blood run cold.
May you like
“I did not tell you,” he whispered,
“because I was the one who arranged for Julian to be tested before you ever met him.”
