Chapter 9 - SUBJECT B
Bianca woke beneath fluorescent lights.
For several seconds, she believed she was back in the wedding ballroom.
White overhead.
Cold beneath her.
Something tight around her chest.
Then memory returned.
The chapel.
Victor.
Daniel Hayes.
A cloth pressed over her mouth.
Darkness.
She tried to move.
Leather straps secured her wrists.
She turned her head.
An IV line ran into her arm.
“No.”
A man stepped into view.
Daniel Hayes had aged well for someone who had spent a decade officially missing.
He was sixty-three.
Thin.
Gray-haired.
His eyes remained disturbingly calm.
“You look like your mother.”
Bianca pulled against the restraints.
“Untie me.”
“I will.”
“Now.”
“Not yet.”
“Where is Victor?”
“Nearby.”
“Where is my father?”
Daniel smiled.
“Also nearby.”
Bianca stopped.
“He’s alive?”
“For the moment.”
“What do you want?”
“You.”
“Why?”
“Because twenty-nine years ago, you were the closest thing Crown ever produced to a perfect genetic candidate.”
Bianca stared at him.
“You experimented on me?”
“No.”
“Your mother stopped us.”
“Us?”
“Richard agreed.”
“My father?”
Daniel nodded.
“Your father was ambitious.”
“He believed successful genetic screening could make Crown worth billions.”
“But Evelyn refused to let either of you become test subjects.”
“Then why monitor me?”
“Because your genetic marker may explain why some patients survived.”
Bianca felt sick.
“What marker?”
“Something Adrian Vale also carries.”
Across town, Lena was asking the same question.
Evelyn sat upright in her hospital bed while Mara spread the newborn genetic report across a table.
Lena pointed at the highlighted marker.
“What does this mean?”
Evelyn stared at it.
“I hoped Daniel destroyed these.”
“He didn’t.”
“What is the marker?”
“A rare receptor mutation.”
“Bianca has it?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t?”
“No.”
“Adrian?”
“Yes.”
Adrian looked at Eleanor.
His mother had arrived twenty minutes earlier.
She nodded slowly.
“That’s why his treatment succeeded.”
Evelyn continued.
“Daniel believed patients with the marker metabolized the Crown compound differently.”
“Rebecca did not have it.”
“She died.”
Lena’s stomach tightened.
“So Daniel wants to test Bianca.”
“Yes.”
“After twenty-nine years?”
“The formula changed.”
Eleanor looked at Evelyn.
“Aurelia.”
Evelyn nodded.
“Richard restarted research using a modified compound.”
“Daniel believes Bianca can prove the theory.”
Lena stared.
“He kidnapped her for a human experiment.”
“Yes.”
Adrian turned toward Mara.
“We know the abandoned hospital.”
“No.”
Evelyn looked at them.
“He won’t be there.”
“Why?”
“Daniel always creates two locations.”
“One he wants you to find.”
“One where he actually works.”
Lena sat.
“Where is the second?”
Evelyn looked at the genetic report.
“The original birthing clinic.”
Lena frowned.
“We were born at New York Presbyterian.”
“No.”
Evelyn whispered.
“That is what your birth certificates say.”
Lena’s heart slowed.
“Where were we born?”
“A private clinic in Connecticut.”
“Daniel delivered you.”
Lena stared at her mother.
Every fact of her life seemed capable of becoming false.
“Why?”
“Because I went into premature labor while staying at the Vale estate.”
Adrian looked at Eleanor.
“You knew?”
Eleanor nodded.
“I was there.”
Lena felt anger rise.
“You have all spent decades carrying around pieces of my life like private property.”
Neither older woman argued.
Evelyn gave Mara the clinic address.
It had closed twenty years ago.
Records showed the building had been purchased by a shell corporation linked to Victor.
Adrian swore.
“My brother owns it.”
Mara immediately deployed teams.
Lena stood.
“I’m going.”
Nobody bothered arguing this time.
The clinic sat behind tall pines outside Stamford.
Most windows were boarded.
One section had power.
Police found Richard in a locked office on the ground floor.
Alive.
Beaten.
Dehydrated.
Lena walked into the room.
Her father looked smaller than she remembered.
He stared at her.
“Lena.”
She did not approach.
“Where is Bianca?”
“Basement.”
“Daniel?”
“Basement.”
“Victor?”
Richard looked away.
“Dad.”
“He’s helping Daniel.”
Adrian stood behind Lena.
“Why?”
Richard laughed weakly.
“Because Victor wants what every younger son wants.”
Adrian’s face hardened.
“What?”
“To stop being second.”
Mara sent officers downstairs.
The basement was empty.
Medical equipment remained warm.
A bag of fluid still hung from a stand.
Bianca had been there minutes earlier.
Daniel had moved her.
On a steel table lay a note.
The handwriting belonged to Victor.
ADRIAN.
YOU ALWAYS GOT TO BE THE GOOD SON.
I GOT TO CLEAN UP WHAT THE GOOD SON NEVER SAW.
NOW YOU GET TO SEE IT.
Lena looked at Adrian.
He folded the note once.
“Victor hates me.”
Richard spoke from behind them.
“No.”
They turned.
“He hates your mother.”
Eleanor had remained at the hospital.
Adrian frowned.
“Why?”
Richard laughed.
“Ask her who she chose when Charles died.”
Adrian’s expression changed.
“What are you talking about?”
Richard looked at Lena.
“Victor learned about Crown when he was twenty-two.”
“He confronted Eleanor.”
“She told him if the truth came out, Adrian’s treatment would be exposed.”
“Vale would collapse.”
“Thousands would lose jobs.”
“She asked Victor to keep quiet.”
Adrian whispered, “And he did.”
“For you.”
Richard nodded.
“At first.”
“Then resentment became useful.”
Lena stared at her father.
“You used him.”
“Yes.”
The simple admission shocked her.
Richard looked exhausted.
“I used everyone.”
“At least I can finally say it accurately.”
Lena’s anger threatened to erupt.
“You declared me dead.”
“Yes.”
“You tried to keep me unconscious.”
“Yes.”
“You manipulated Bianca.”
“Yes.”
“You blackmailed Victor.”
“Yes.”
“You let Mom disappear.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Richard looked at her.
“Because I was afraid of losing everything.”
Lena laughed.
“You did.”
“Yes.”
For the first time, her father seemed to understand it.
Mara entered.
“Daniel left something.”
She held a tablet.
A prerecorded video began.
Bianca appeared strapped to a medical chair.
Lena stepped closer.
Daniel stood behind her.
“If you are seeing this, Richard has probably told you a version of the truth that makes him sound pathetic rather than monstrous.”
Richard closed his eyes.
Daniel continued.
“Bianca will receive the Aurelia compound at midnight tomorrow.”
“If she survives, every secret Richard killed to protect becomes worth billions.”
“If she dies, she becomes Patient Eighty-Seven.”
Lena stared.
“Where?”
Daniel smiled at the camera.
“Your mother knows.”
The video ended.
Lena turned toward Richard.
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Dad.”
“I don’t.”
Lena believed him.
That frightened her.
Adrian’s phone rang.
Eleanor.
He answered.
“Mother?”
His face changed.
“What?”
He put the call on speaker.
Eleanor’s voice was shaking.
“Evelyn is gone.”
Lena froze.
“What do you mean gone?”
“She left the hospital.”
“Security?”
“She knew the service corridors.”
“Why would she leave?”
Then another voice came onto the line.
Victor.
“Because I asked her to.”
Adrian gripped the phone.
“Victor.”
“Hello, brother.”
“Where is Bianca?”
“Safe enough.”
“Where is Evelyn?”
“With me.”
Lena stepped closer.
“Victor, if Daniel touches Bianca—”
“He already has.”
Lena’s blood chilled.
“What does that mean?”
“He started the preliminary infusion.”
“Why?”
“Because he doesn’t trust us.”
“Us?”
Lena caught the word.
Victor paused.
Then laughed softly.
“You really don’t know anything yet.”
“Know what?”
“Daniel isn’t running Aurelia.”
“Then who is?”
Victor’s answer changed the entire case.
“Bianca.”
Lena stopped breathing.
“No.”
“She didn’t get kidnapped at the chapel.”
“She arranged it.”
“That’s a lie.”
“Ask her when you see her.”
Victor disconnected.
Lena stared at the phone.
Richard looked away.
Lena saw it.
“You knew.”
Richard said nothing.
“Dad.”
He finally looked at her.
“Bianca restarted Aurelia three years ago.”
The room became silent.
“She used the Belle Foundation to recruit patients.”
Lena felt physically ill.
“All those children?”
“She believed the treatment could work.”
“She believed she could fix what Rebecca died for.”
Lena whispered, “How many died?”
Richard closed his eyes.
“Six.”
The woman Lena had entered the wedding to expose was no longer merely the sister who stole her identity.
May you like
Bianca had been protecting something far darker.
And somewhere, before midnight tomorrow, she intended to become her own final test subject.
