Chapter 12 - THE BROTHER JULIAN FORGOT
I reached Julian’s house forty minutes later.
Rachel and Grace stayed with Thomas.
I hated leaving.
But Marianne had chosen her next battlefield.
I needed to know why.
Police waited two streets away.
Marcus stood beside them.
He did not approach me until I nodded.
Inside the house, Julian sat in the living room.
Marianne stood beside the fireplace.
She wore a cream suit.
Pearls.
Perfect hair.
She looked exactly as she had at our wedding.
As if the last twenty-four hours had inconvenienced everyone except her.
“Clara.”
Her voice was warm.
That almost made me laugh.
“Marianne.”
Julian looked destroyed.
A folder lay open before him.
“You knew.”
I looked at him.
“I found out tonight.”
“Is it true?”
I glanced at Marianne.
She smiled faintly.
She wanted me to deliver the blow.
I refused.
“Ask your mother.”
Julian looked at her.
She poured herself water.
“Your condition was diagnosed years before you married Clara.”
His face twisted.
“What condition?”
“Azoospermia.”
He stared.
“I don’t know what that means.”
“You do not produce sperm.”
Silence.
Julian shook his head.
“No.”
“Your first specialist confirmed it when you were twenty-four.”
“I never saw a specialist.”
“You had a routine evaluation after Claire Donovan thought she was pregnant.”
He stared at his mother.
“You told me the test was normal.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because there was no benefit in telling you otherwise.”
He laughed.
A broken sound.
“No benefit?”
“You were young.”
“You would have obsessed.”
“You would have believed yourself damaged.”
Julian looked at me.
His eyes were red.
“That’s what I did to Clara.”
Marianne did not respond.
He turned back.
“You watched me blame her.”
“Yes.”
“You encouraged me.”
“I encouraged you to leave an unhappy marriage.”
“You knew why it was unhappy.”
“I knew both of you were becoming consumed by failure.”
“Mine.”
“Yes.”
Julian stood.
“Mine.”
His voice shook.
“Not hers.”
“No.”
He stared at his mother for several seconds.
Then asked, “Who is Miles’s father?”
Marianne’s expression changed slightly.
There.
The question she did not want.
I spoke.
“Adrian.”
Julian froze.
The color vanished from his face.
For a moment, I thought he might collapse.
“No.”
Marianne’s calm cracked.
“Clara.”
“What?”
“That was not yours to disclose.”
I stared at her.
“You stole my eggs.”
“You stole Adrian’s stored sperm.”
“You created children without either person’s consent.”
“And you think you still get to decide whose information belongs to whom?”
Julian sank back into the chair.
“Adrian.”
He whispered the name like someone resurrecting a ghost.
I had never heard him say it.
“Why didn’t you tell me about him?”
I asked softly.
Julian covered his face.
“My father stopped allowing his name in the house.”
“After the accident?”
Julian looked up.
“It wasn’t an accident.”
Marianne went still.
I stared.
“What?”
Julian looked at his mother.
“You told everyone it was.”
Marianne’s face hardened.
“This is irrelevant.”
“No.”
Julian stood again.
“You don’t get to use that word anymore.”
He looked at me.
“Adrian killed himself.”
Silence.
I had not expected that.
Julian continued.
“He had lymphoma at seventeen.”
“He survived.”
“But afterward he struggled.”
“He hated being treated like the fragile one.”
“My father pushed him into the family business.”
“Adrian wanted music.”
“They fought constantly.”
“One night he drove to the lake.”
“They found his car.”
My throat tightened.
“I’m sorry.”
Julian looked toward the floor.
“My parents told everyone it was an accident.”
“They told me never to talk about it.”
“I was sixteen.”
“Two years later my father died.”
“Then it was just me and her.”
He looked at Marianne.
“You kept Adrian’s sperm?”
She did not answer.
“Answer me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because it was his.”
“He was my child.”
Julian laughed bitterly.
“So you stole from your dead son too.”
“I preserved what remained.”
“You used it.”
“For the family.”
“You used his genetic material to create children he never consented to.”
Marianne’s jaw tightened.
“He banked it.”
“For himself.”
“Not for you.”
“He was dead.”
The coldness of that sentence changed Julian.
I saw it.
Something in him finally broke away from her.
Maybe the last loyal part.
“You’re sick.”
Marianne slapped him.
One sharp sound.
No one moved.
Julian slowly turned his face back.
She looked almost shocked by her own action.
Then he smiled.
Not smug.
Sad.
“You’re losing control.”
Her eyes narrowed.
He stepped closer.
“That terrifies you, doesn’t it?”
Marcus entered from the hallway.
“Marianne Cross.”
She turned.
“You need to leave the property.”
“This is my son’s house.”
Julian spoke.
“No.”
She stared at him.
“This is my house.”
“And I want you out.”
Marianne’s expression became empty.
Dangerously empty.
She picked up her handbag.
Before leaving, she looked at me.
“You think biology makes those children yours.”
I held her gaze.
“No.”
“Being denied the chance to know them makes them part of what was stolen from me.”
She smiled.
“You still don’t understand.”
“What?”
“Grace is not the child you need to worry about.”
My stomach tightened.
“What does that mean?”
She walked toward the door.
I followed.
“Marianne.”
She stopped.
Then looked at Julian.
“Ask your ex-wife what happened to embryo A.”
I froze.
Dr. Vance had said embryo A was destroyed as genetically abnormal.
Marianne smiled.
“Nothing in this family is ever destroyed when it can still be useful.”
Then she walked out.
Julian and I stared at each other.
Embryo A.
A third embryo.
The one we had believed was destroyed.
Marcus immediately called Dr. Vance.
She answered on the second ring.
When he asked about C-17A, she went quiet.
Too quiet.
“Audrey?”
“There’s something I didn’t tell Clara.”
My stomach dropped.
“What?”
“I found a second archive entry.”
“For C-17A?”
“Yes.”
“What does it say?”
Dr. Vance exhaled.
“It wasn’t destroyed.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“Where was it sent?”
“Not Denver.”
“Where?”
“New York.”
“To whom?”
“I don’t have a patient name.”
“Did it become a pregnancy?”
Another pause.
“We found a birth notification linked to the embryo code.”
Julian closed his eyes.
I whispered, “Boy or girl?”
Dr. Vance answered.
“A boy.”
My knees weakened.
“How old?”
“Two.”
Older than Miles and Grace.
The room went silent.
Three embryos.
Three children.
One with Sienna.
One with Rachel.
And one somewhere in New York.
Marianne had not created an heir.
She had created options.
Dr. Vance continued.
“Clara, there’s something else.”
“What?”
“The receiving clinic was Caldwell Reproductive Partners.”
I looked at Marcus.
His face went pale.
The clinic he had represented.
The clinic whose whistleblower disappeared.
And suddenly his old case was no longer background.
May you like
It was connected directly to my first stolen child.
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