Chapter 12 - THE KIDNAPPING ATTEMPT
Ava had not actually been taken.
We learned that eight minutes into the drive.
Agent Ortiz received confirmation from the protection team.
My daughter was still inside a secure pediatric suite.
The nursery footage Elias showed us had been recorded earlier.
Relief nearly made me collapse.
Then anger replaced it.
“He wanted us to panic.”
Luka stared ahead.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“So we make mistakes.”
“Are we going to the airport anyway?”
“Yes.”
Ortiz spoke from the front seat.
“With backup.”
Samuel stayed at the hospital with Dad.
Celeste came with us.
Ethan insisted.
No one had the energy to stop him.
At Mercer Executive Airport, Hangar Three stood open.
No plane.
No Elias.
Only a table under a bright work light.
One document waited.
Luka approached carefully.
The paper was an acknowledgment of kinship.
It stated that he accepted Ava Mercer as the biological daughter of Ethan Mercer and recognized her as a qualifying descendant of the Moretti line.
He laughed once.
“He wants me to validate the lie.”
Celeste examined it.
“If you sign, the trust claim becomes much harder to stop.”
“I’m not signing.”
Ethan looked around.
“Then why bring us here?”
My phone rang.
Elias.
I answered on speaker.
“You lied about taking Ava.”
“I demonstrated access.”
“You don’t have access.”
“Are you sure?”
My stomach tightened.
Luka’s jaw hardened.
“What do you want?”
Elias answered.
“Order.”
“You call this order?”
“I spent forty years building structures that prevent family assets from being destroyed by weak heirs.”
Ethan laughed.
“You mean me?”
A pause.
“You were always emotional.”
Ethan’s face went cold.
“You told me I was Dominic’s son.”
“Yes.”
“Was that a lie?”
Elias did not answer.
“Was Dominic my father?”
Silence.
Then Elias said.
“No.”
Ethan went completely still.
Luka turned.
I felt my breath stop.
“Then who is?”
Ethan whispered.
Elias answered.
“I am.”
Silence swallowed the hangar.
Luka’s face changed.
Ethan looked as though the floor had disappeared.
“So we are brothers.”
Luka said it quietly.
“Yes.”
Elias sounded almost proud.
“Both my sons.”
Luka’s expression turned lethal.
“You used one son’s biological material to create a child you could place under the other son’s name.”
“Yes.”
No shame.
No hesitation.
Ethan gripped the table.
“Why tell me Dominic was my father?”
“Because you needed to believe your position was vulnerable.”
“What?”
“Fear is motivating.”
I watched Ethan absorb the fact that the central trauma shaping half his life had been manufactured by his father.
Elias continued.
“You feared losing the Mercer name.”
“So you obeyed.”
“You married Amelia.”
“You entered the fertility program.”
“You did exactly what was required.”
Ethan’s face twisted.
“You destroyed my life.”
“No.”
“You wasted it.”
Luka looked toward the ceiling.
“Where are you?”
“Close enough.”
Ortiz motioned agents outward.
Elias continued.
“Luka, sign.”
“No.”
“If you refuse, the truth about your father will become public.”
Luka laughed.
“Which father?”
A pause.
That landed.
“Dominic raised me.”
“Whatever you did with a laboratory doesn’t change that.”
For the first time, Elias sounded irritated.
“Sentiment.”
“Yes.”
Luka’s voice hardened.
“You should try it.”
I almost smiled despite everything.
Elias changed tactics.
“Amelia.”
“I’m done listening.”
“Your daughter’s future can be worth hundreds of millions.”
“She is worth more than that already.”
Silence.
“Then you’re a fool.”
“Maybe.”
“But she’ll grow up knowing who she is.”
I hung up.
Celeste looked at me.
“That felt good.”
“It did.”
Then gunfire erupted outside.
Agents moved.
Luka pulled me behind a vehicle.
No one in the hangar was hit.
Shots struck lights.
Darkness exploded around us.
A vehicle engine roared.
Elias’s people had not come to kill us.
They came to create confusion.
Celeste shouted.
“The document.”
Luka looked.
The kinship acknowledgment was gone.
So was Ethan.
My heart jumped.
“Where is he?”
We heard tires scream outside.
Ortiz ran toward the hangar doors.
A black SUV disappeared through the gate.
Ethan had been taken.
Or he had left willingly.
No one knew which.
Celeste stared after it.
“He wouldn’t go with Elias.”
I looked at her.
“You sound sure.”
“I know him.”
“So did I.”
She flinched.
I did not apologize.
Then Luka’s phone buzzed.
A video message from Ethan.
He was in the back seat of the SUV.
No restraints.
My stomach dropped.
He looked directly at the camera.
“Amelia.”
“I’m sorry.”
Celeste whispered.
“No.”
Ethan continued.
“I know this looks like I chose him.”
“I didn’t.”
“I’m going because there’s one thing only Elias can access.”
“The master genetic archive.”
Luka cursed.
Ethan’s video continued.
“If I can get it, we can prove everything.”
“Don’t follow me.”
“Please.”
“I have already ruined enough of your life.”
Then he looked off-camera.
The video ended.
Celeste looked furious.
“He’s an idiot.”
Luka nodded.
“Yes.”
“You agree with me too easily.”
“You’re right too often for someone I dislike.”
She almost smiled.
Ortiz reentered.
“The SUV switched plates.”
“We lost it.”
I looked at the table.
Elias had taken the unsigned document.
It was useless.
Unless he planned to forge Luka’s signature.
Celeste seemed to think the same.
“He can fake the acknowledgment.”
Luka nodded.
“Then the trust freezes until live verification.”
“He’ll need you in person.”
“Which means he won’t stop.”
My phone buzzed.
This time the message came from Samuel.
COME BACK TO RIVERGLEN.
Then another.
YOUR FATHER REMEMBERED SOMETHING ABOUT THE LAST DNA ENVELOPE.
I stared.
The last DNA envelope.
The phrase from the beginning of everything.
The truth Ethan would eventually beg me not to open.
We drove back.
Dad sat upright when I entered.
He looked clearer than before.
Lucid.
“Milly.”
“I’m here.”
He held a sealed envelope.
Old.
Yellowed.
“Where did you get that?”
“Samuel kept it.”
I looked at my uncle.
He nodded.
Dad handed it to me.
Across the front:
ETHAN MERCER — PATERNITY ORIGIN TEST.
My heart pounded.
“When was this done?”
Dad answered.
“The night before my crash.”
“Why?”
“Ethan asked me.”
I stared.
“What?”
“He didn’t trust Elias.”
Dad looked tired.
“He wanted to know who his real father was.”
“So he asked you to test him.”
“Yes.”
“And you did.”
“Yes.”
“What does it say?”
Dad shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
“You never opened it?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Ethan begged me not to.”
My skin chilled.
There it was.
The same pattern.
The same envelope.
The same begging.
“What did he think it would show?”
Dad looked at Luka.
“That Dominic Moretti was his father.”
“But Elias just said he isn’t.”
Dad’s eyes narrowed.
“Elias lies.”
I stared at the envelope.
If we opened it, we might settle everything.
Ethan’s origin.
Luka’s relationship.
The genetic logic behind Ava.
Luka stepped closer.
“Open it.”
I slid my finger beneath the flap.
Dad grabbed my wrist.
“Wait.”
I stopped.
“What?”
His eyes filled with fear.
“The report isn’t the dangerous part.”
“What is?”
He turned the envelope over.
Taped to the back was a smaller packet I had not noticed.
SECONDARY MATCH — THOMAS HAYES.
My blood ran cold.
“Why is your name there?”
Dad closed his eyes.
“I don’t remember.”
Samuel looked horrified.
Neither did he.
Luka stared at the packet.
Then at me.
May you like
And for the first time, I wondered whether the DNA secret hidden inside M-17 did not only connect Ethan and Luka.
It might connect my father too.
