PART 2 For several seconds, I could hear nothing except the blood pounding behind my ears. Clara Wynn stood across from me, drenched from the rain, clutching a leather bag that had somehow become more dangerous than any weapon ever brought into my house. On my desk lay two genetic reports. Jonah Mercer. Blythe Mercer. Potential stem-cell donor match: 99.8%. And beneath them, Genevieve’s letter. The woman I had buried two years earlier had left me a secret capable of splitting my world in half. I looked up at Clara. “Say it again.” Her face tightened. “Genevieve wasn’t their biological mother.”
The alarm continued screaming through the mansion. Prescott’s voice snapped through his radio. “South team, report.” Static. Then gunfire cracked somewhere beyond the garden wall. Three shots. A pause. Then four more. Normally, my body would have reacted without thought. I had survived ambushes in warehouses, attacks on highways, assassination attempts disguised as business meetings. But nothing had ever left me as helpless as Clara’s words. “Who gave birth to my children?” I demanded. She glanced toward the window. “We need to move.” “Answer me.” “Lawson—” “ANSWER ME.” Prescott stepped between us. “Boss, we have movement near the south entrance.”
“I don’t care.”
“You will if Vane’s men reach this wing.”
The mention of Crosby Vane finally cut through my shock.
Vane had spent eight years trying to destroy everything carrying the Mercer name.
My businesses.
My allies.
My reputation.
Me.
But he had never come near my children.
Until today.
I grabbed Clara’s arm.
“Who is their mother?”
She stared into my eyes.
“I am.”
The world stopped.
I released her as if I had touched fire.
“No.”
Her lips trembled.
“I gave birth to Jonah and Blythe.”
“No.”
“I can prove it.”
“No.”
Genevieve had carried them.
I remembered her swollen belly.
The sleepless nights.
Her hand resting over my children while she laughed about how Jonah kicked harder whenever I spoke.
I had sat beside her through appointments.
I had watched the ultrasound screen.
I had kissed her forehead while she screamed during labor.
I had cut the cord.
“You’re lying.”
Clara’s eyes filled.
“Genevieve carried them.”
I froze.
Clara nodded slowly.
“But the embryos were created from your DNA and mine.”
Every thought inside my head collided.
“What are you talking about?”
“Surrogacy.”
“That never happened.”
“You weren’t supposed to know.”
Prescott turned toward her sharply.
Clara swallowed.
“Genevieve couldn’t produce viable eggs. She found out before your wedding.”
My chest tightened.
“She told me she was healthy.”
“She was terrified you’d leave her.”
I almost laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because the idea was absurd.
“I loved my wife.”
“I know.”
“Then why would she hide this?”
Clara looked down.
“Because she didn’t believe she deserved that kind of love.”
Another burst of gunfire echoed outside.
Closer.
Prescott drew his pistol.
“We move. Now.”
He pushed open the hidden door behind the bookshelf.
Few people knew about the reinforced corridor connecting my office to the medical wing.
I grabbed the reports and Genevieve’s letter.
Clara followed.
The door sealed behind us.
The corridor lights glowed pale blue.
As we walked, I turned on Clara.
“Start talking.”
She did.
Six years earlier, Genevieve had learned that repeated ovarian damage from a childhood medical condition had left her unable to conceive with her own eggs.
She had hidden the diagnosis from almost everyone.
Except Clara.
They had grown up together in the same foster home outside Milwaukee.
Not sisters by blood.
Sisters by survival.
When Genevieve confessed that she feared losing me, Clara offered something neither woman understood would someday become a nightmare.
Her eggs.
I stopped walking.
“You donated them?”
“Yes.”
“And nobody told me?”
“Genevieve said you knew.”
My jaw clenched.
“She lied to both of us.”
Clara nodded.
“She told me you were grateful but wanted privacy.”
“Why would you agree?”
A strange sadness crossed her face.
“Because she saved my life when we were sixteen.”
I said nothing.
“She took blame for something I did. It kept me out of juvenile detention. She always protected me.”
“So you gave her children?”
“I gave her a chance to become a mother.”
The words cut deeper than I expected.
“And then you disappeared.”
“She asked me to.”
We reached the medical wing.
Dr. Yates was standing outside the twins’ room, pale and confused.
“Lawson, security says—”
“Test her.”
He blinked.
“What?”
I pointed to Clara.
“Run every compatibility test you have.”
Clara opened her coat sleeve.
“You can take whatever you need.”
Yates looked between us.
“Who is she?”
I didn’t answer.
Because I still wasn’t ready to say it aloud.
Their mother.
Their biological mother.
The phrase felt like a betrayal of Genevieve.
Yet across the glass, Blythe shifted beneath her blanket.
Her skin looked almost translucent.
Jonah lay beside her, one hand still wrapped around hers.
Ten days.
Maybe less.
Nothing else mattered.
“Do it,” I said.
Yates nodded.
Twenty minutes later, Clara sat in a private examination room while blood filled several labeled tubes.
I waited outside.
Prescott returned from security control.
“South team intercepted three men.”
“Vane?”
“Looks like it.”
“Any casualties?”
“One guard wounded. Stable.”
“And the attackers?”
“Two captured. One escaped.”
I stared through the glass at Clara.
“Why come today?”
Prescott understood immediately.
“Exactly what I was wondering.”
Clara looked up as if she had heard us.
When the nurse left, I entered.
“You knew someone would attack.”
“No.”
“You told me they came for you.”
“I guessed.”
“Why?”
Her silence told me enough.
I closed the door.
“What haven’t you told me?”
She stared at the needle mark on her arm.
“Genevieve contacted me three weeks before she died.”
My stomach tightened.
“She said someone had discovered the truth about the twins.”
“Who?”
“She wouldn’t say.”
“And two years later you suddenly appear?”
“I didn’t suddenly appear.”
She reached into her coat pocket and placed several folded envelopes on the table.
All addressed to me.
All unopened.
“These were returned.”
I picked one up.
The date was eleven months earlier.
Another had been sent eight months ago.
Another five months ago.
“I wrote to you.”
I looked at Prescott.
His face hardened.
“I never saw these.”
Clara gave a bitter laugh.
“Of course you didn’t.”
“What does that mean?”
“Someone inside your organization was intercepting them.”
The room became very quiet.
That possibility was worse than the men outside.
My home was a fortress.
But fortresses were useless when the enemy already had a key.
I opened the oldest envelope.
Inside was a short message.
Lawson,
I believe Genevieve’s death may not have been accidental. If the twins ever become ill, contact me immediately. Their medical history may have been altered.
Clara.
I read it twice.
Then a third time.
Genevieve had died in a car accident.
Her driver had lost control on an icy road.
The investigation found no sabotage.
No mechanical tampering.
Nothing suspicious.
“You think she was murdered?”
Clara whispered, “I think she discovered something.”
“What?”
Before she could answer, Dr. Yates rushed into the room.
His expression made my heart stop.
“Lawson.”
“What happened?”
“It’s Blythe.”
I was moving before he finished.
Blythe’s monitor screamed.
A nurse adjusted oxygen while another checked her pulse.
Jonah was awake now.
Terrified.
“Daddy!”
I reached him first.
“I’m here.”
“What’s wrong with Bly?”
“She’s okay.”
It was a lie.
Children always know.
Jonah looked at me with those huge gray eyes.
“You promised nobody was going anywhere.”
My throat closed.
“I remember.”
Dr. Yates moved beside Blythe.
“She’s crashing.”
The words turned the room into chaos.
Nurses moved quickly.
Monitors flashed.
I stood helplessly with Jonah clinging to me.
Clara stopped at the doorway.
She looked at Blythe.
Then at me.
“Take mine.”
Yates turned.
“What?”
