Chapter 10 - The Price of a Mother
I was not going alone.
Alexander expected that.
So we gave him what he expected to see.
Me.
The locket.
No visible security.
Giovanni hated the plan.
“You’re not trained for this.”
“I’m not asking permission.”
“You sound like me.”
“That should terrify you.”
“It does.”
Police tracked me from a distance.
Franco embedded a transmitter inside the locket.
The meeting point was an abandoned Ashford laboratory.
Alexander stood behind glass.
My mother sat nearby.
Weak.
Furious.
Alive.
“Hannah.”
“Let her go.”
“Give me the locket.”
“First Mom.”
Alexander smiled.
“You inherited Margaret’s negotiating style.”
“Apparently not her taste in men.”
His smile disappeared.
Good.
I placed the locket on a table.
“Why does this matter?”
“Because your mother stole intellectual property.”
“She copied evidence.”
“She stole research worth billions.”
There it was.
The cancer compound had failed in its original form.
But decades later, revised versions could be worth enormous amounts.
Alexander wanted the original genetic dataset because it established ownership.
My mother possessed proof that the research relied on unauthorized samples.
Without consent records, Alexander could lose everything.
“You kidnapped a dying woman for patent evidence?”
“Kidnapped?”
Mom suddenly laughed.
“I came willingly, you idiot.”
Alexander turned.
That was the opening.
Mom had lured him.
She wanted him talking.
A recorder sat beneath her blanket.
Alexander realized too late.
He lunged toward her.
I screamed.
Police burst through two entrances.
Giovanni and Franco appeared behind them.
Alexander grabbed the locket and ran toward a rear laboratory door.
Tyler stepped through it.
Everyone froze.
He had followed us.
“Dad.”
Alexander stopped.
Tyler’s voice broke.
“Am I your son?”
Alexander looked at him.
“No.”
One word destroyed thirty-two years.
Tyler staggered.
“Then who is?”
Alexander smiled cruelly.
“You still don’t understand.”
He looked directly at me.
“Margaret never hid Hannah because of who her father was.”
Mom screamed:
“Alexander, don’t!”
He continued.
“She hid Hannah because of who her mother was.”
I stared at Mom.
“What does that mean?”
Alexander laughed as officers seized him.
Margaret struggled to stand.
“Hannah, listen to me.”
“You’re my mother.”
“Yes.”
“Then what is he talking about?”
She reached toward me.
Before she could answer, Alexander shouted from the floor:
“Ask Rebecca which baby she carried out of Ashford Biotech thirty-two years ago!”
Rebecca.
Baby.
Thirty-two years.
Tyler’s age.
Not mine.
Mom closed her eyes.
And I understood something horrible.
May you like
The switched records had never been about paternity alone.
Someone had switched children.
