Chapter 10 - The Guard Behind Victor
Marcus disappeared before Victor could confront him.
Security footage showed him entering the underground tunnel.
Victor followed with two guards.
Sarah insisted on coming.
They found Marcus in the old medical wing.
Not fleeing.
Destroying records.
Victor slammed him against a cabinet.
“Fifteen years.”
Marcus looked almost ashamed.
“I'm sorry.”
“You watched Lily grow up.”
“Yes.”
“You helped them use her.”
“I kept them from taking her.”
Victor stopped.
Another contradiction.
Marcus worked for Vincent.
But for years, his real assignment had been to monitor Lily's health and ensure she remained accessible.
When Vincent ordered Lily transferred to a laboratory at age four, Marcus falsified medical reports claiming she had developed a genetic abnormality that made her unsuitable.
He saved her.
While still serving the man threatening her.
“Why not tell me?”
“Vincent had my daughter.”
Marcus's daughter suffered a rare disease.
Vincent provided treatment.
Then used access to that treatment as leverage.
Again the network was built from people whose worst choices grew around someone they loved.
Marcus helped fake Claire's pregnancy.
He hated it.
But believed doing so kept Vincent focused on the missing infant instead of Lily.
“Where is Vincent?”
Marcus finally gave them an address.
Not far.
An abandoned Vale estate.
Victor's childhood home.
Of course.
Victor entered before dawn.
Vincent sat in the old dining room.
Silver hair.
Older.
Thinner.
But unmistakable.
Like looking into a damaged mirror.
“Hello, brother.”
Victor wanted to strike him.
He didn't.
“Why Lily?”
Vincent smiled.
“She isn't what you think.”
“She's a child.”
“Biologically.”
“Still a child.”
Vincent's smile faded.
He explained.
Lily was not created using Vincent's sample.
That record had been falsified.
He never knew who replaced it.
Someone sabotaged his program before Lily's conception.
Her paternal DNA belonged to another Vale male.
Victor.
Victor stared.
Impossible.
He had never donated material to Emily's clinic.
Vincent agreed.
“That is why I've spent eight years trying to understand who did.”
Someone stole Victor's preserved sample from an unrelated medical procedure decades earlier.
Used it to create Emily's embryo.
Lily was genetically Victor's daughter.
And Emily's daughter.
Meaning Victor was both her biological father and maternal grandfather.
A grotesque scientific manipulation no one had consented to.
Victor looked sick.
Vincent watched him.
“You think I'm the only monster in this family?”
“Who did it?”
May you like
Vincent leaned back.
“Eleanor.”
