Chapter 6 - The Sample Gabriel Died Protecting
Samuel Pike did not run.
That immediately distinguished him from the story everyone expected.
When Mara called, he answered.
When Richard’s attorneys requested a meeting, he agreed.
When police investigators arrived because of possible reproductive fraud, he surrendered his passport.
Guilty people could cooperate.
Innocent people could run.
Behavior was evidence, not verdict.
Emma kept reminding herself.
Samuel was sixty-four.
Thin.
Gray-haired.
He wore rimless glasses and had the exhausted hands of a surgeon.
When Emma entered, he looked at her belly for less than a second.
Then at her face.
“You look like Margaret.”
Emma hated how much that affected her.
“Tell me about my mother.”
Samuel’s eyes softened.
“She was smarter than all of us.”
“Did you love her?”
“Yes.”
“Did she love you?”
“For a while.”
“Did you use Gabriel’s sperm to fertilize my eggs?”
Samuel’s expression did not change.
“No.”
Damon muttered:
“Everyone says no.”
Emma ignored him.
“What did you find before Gabriel died?”
Samuel looked at Richard.
“I want immunity.”
Richard almost laughed.
“You don’t negotiate with me.”
“I’m not. I’m negotiating with prosecutors.”
That told Emma Samuel had committed something.
Maybe not the crime they expected.
After attorneys negotiated limited protections concerning old data theft—not reproductive fraud—Samuel talked.
The “original” was a cryogenic sample from 1993.
Walter Mercer had labeled it:
M-0.
Samuel discovered it hidden inside Haven’s oldest storage inventory.
“Whose was it?”
Samuel looked at Richard.
“Yours.”
Richard stared.
Damon frowned.
“My father’s?”
“Yes.”
Emma’s confusion deepened.
“Why would Richard’s sample matter?”
Samuel answered:
“Because Walter used it without Richard’s knowledge.”
The room changed.
Richard stood.
“No.”
Samuel slid over a document.
1994 experimental fertilization record.
Paternal source:
R.M.
Maternal source:
DONOR 17.
Emma remembered.
Archive Donor 17.
Her mother.
She stopped breathing.
“No.”
Samuel looked at her.
“The procedure never produced a pregnancy.”
Richard’s face had become stone.
“Margaret would never consent.”
“She didn’t.”
Emma felt nauseated.
Walter had combined Richard’s reproductive material with Margaret’s genetic material experimentally.
No transfer.
No child.
But without consent.
Richard looked physically ill.
“So Walter was testing compatibility.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“His dynasty model.”
Emma finally understood why her profile later rated highly.
Walter’s model had originally paired Richard and Margaret genetically.
Years later it identified Margaret’s daughter as compatible with Richard’s sons.
A grotesque continuation of an old experiment.
Samuel stole the M-0 record.
Gabriel discovered him.
That was the phone call.
“I told Gabriel I found proof Walter had violated both his father and Margaret.”
“What did Gabriel say?”
“He said he was coming.”
Claire began crying.
“He got on the helicopter because of that?”
“Yes.”
Samuel had planned to meet Gabriel at a private airfield.
Gabriel never arrived.
The crash occurred en route.
Damon looked at Samuel.
“So you didn’t kill him.”
“No.”
“Can you prove it?”
“I was waiting at the airfield on camera.”
Mara confirmed.
Another compelling suspect weakened.
But Samuel admitted something else.
After Gabriel’s death, he became convinced Walter—or Walter’s network—had caused the crash.
He began sabotaging Continuity.
He altered records.
Copied credentials.
Moved samples.
“Did you move Gabriel’s sperm?”
“Yes.”
Claire stood.
“You said—”
“I moved it away from Haven.”
“When?”
“Three months before Emma’s IVF.”
Emma stared.
“Then how did it come back?”
“It shouldn’t have.”
“Where did you move it?”
“A private research freezer under a false inventory number.”
“Who knew?”
“Only me.”
“Apparently not.”
Samuel looked ashamed.
“No.”
Mara asked for the location.
Samuel gave it.
The facility had been emptied two months before Emma’s cycle.
Security footage deleted.
Someone had followed Samuel.
Nora?
Walter?
Another person?
Then Samuel revealed why he sabotaged the system.
He wanted Walter to believe Continuity still functioned while quietly making it unusable.
Nora claimed the same.
Two people independently pretending to help Walter while secretly undermining him.
That explained why the chain was chaotic.
One person moved a sample.
Another replaced it.
A third altered records.
Multiple interventions collided.
Emma asked the question nobody wanted.
“Could Gabriel’s sperm have been used accidentally?”
Samuel hesitated.
“Yes.”
Everyone stared.
He explained.
If multiple people manipulated mislabeled cryogenic positions, a vial could be selected unintentionally.
The conspiracy might not have intended Gabriel specifically.
Damon laughed.
“So this entire nightmare could be a clerical mistake?”
“No,” Emma said.
She held up Gabriel’s letter.
“He predicted the possibility.”
Someone deliberately created conditions.
But the final sample selection might have gone wrong.
That distinction opened a new possibility.
What if Walter’s intended donor was someone else?
Richard.
Damon.
Another Mercer.
Who?
Samuel’s records revealed Walter had maintained a hidden donor catalogue.
Codes instead of names.
M-0 Richard.
M-1 Walter.
M-2 Gabriel.
M-3 Damon.
M-4 unknown.
Damon frowned.
“Who is M-4?”
Samuel shook his head.
“I never found out.”
Richard looked disturbed.
“There are only four Mercer men in our line.”
Walter.
Richard.
Gabriel.
Damon.
Unless—
Claire whispered:
“Walter had another son.”
Nora was his daughter.
Could there be more children?
Samuel said M-4 was created in 1998.
The donor was an adult male.
Genetically related to Richard.
Close enough to be first-degree.
Richard stared.
“That’s impossible.”
Emma had learned to distrust that word.
Mara requested the genetic profile.
Partial data survived.
M-4 shared approximately fifty percent of Richard’s DNA.
Possible son.
Possible brother.
Richard’s father had died in 1981.
Walter was alive.
Could Walter have created a duplicate sample under another code?
Samuel shook his head.
M-1 and M-4 were genetically distinct.
Richard had another close male relative.
Someone erased from the family tree.
Damon asked:
“Was M-4 the donor intended for Emma?”
Samuel’s expression changed.
“I think so.”
“Why?”
Because the hidden laboratory order created the night of Emma’s fertilization did not request Gabriel.
It requested M-4.
Emma stared.
“Then Gabriel’s sample was used instead.”
“Yes.”
“By mistake?”
“Possibly.”
That was a major payoff.
The pregnancy everyone assumed had been engineered to create Gabriel’s heir may not have been intended to be Gabriel’s at all.
Someone wanted Emma impregnated with M-4.
The inheritance consequence could have been accidental.
Which meant Damon’s money motive explained what he did after discovering paternity—
not why the pregnancy happened.
Emma asked:
“Who ordered M-4?”
Samuel looked at the recovered metadata.
User authorization:
G.MERCER.
Gabriel.
Claire whispered:
“No.”
Damon’s eyes hardened.
“Your husband ordered it.”
Samuel shook his head.
“His credentials ordered it.”
Again.
Identity and credentials were not the same.
The timestamp was six weeks after Gabriel’s death.
Someone used his account.
Mara traced the remote login.
It came from the Mercer estate.
Richard’s home.
Specifically—
the nursery wing.
Emma frowned.
“There was no nursery then.”
Richard looked at Damon.
Damon looked back.
The room had once been Gabriel’s childhood bedroom.
After Gabriel died, Claire stayed there for several weeks because she could not sleep in their marital suite.
Claire’s face drained.
“I didn’t use his account.”
Damon stood.
“You keep being near everything.”
“So do you!”
Richard interrupted.
Emma looked at Claire.
“Who visited you in that room?”
Claire thought.
Family.
Staff.
Richard.
Damon.
Nora.
And—
“Evelyn.”
Everyone turned.
Claire nodded.
“She came after Gabriel’s funeral. She brought his fertility records.”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
“I remember.”
“Did you use his computer?”
“No.”
“Did anyone?”
Evelyn thought.
Then her face changed.
“Gabriel’s computer wasn’t there.”
Claire frowned.
“Yes, it was.”
“No. You told me Damon took it.”
Damon stared.
“I never took Gabriel’s computer.”
Claire looked confused.
“I thought you did.”
“Why?”
“Nora said you did.”
Everyone went silent.
Nora.
Again.
But Nora had admitted working for Walter.
She could have moved the computer.
Emma asked:
“Where is it now?”
No one knew.
Mara checked estate inventory.
Gabriel’s laptop had been logged into storage after his death.
Signed in by:
RICHARD MERCER.
Richard shook his head.
“I never touched it.”
Security image attached.
An older silver-haired man carrying a laptop box.
At first glance:
Richard.
Then Mara enlarged the face.
Walter.
The brothers resembled each other strongly in old age.
Walter had entered the estate pretending to be Richard.
Perhaps not once.
Perhaps repeatedly.
Richard stared at the screen.
His brother had been walking through his home wearing his identity.
Then Emma noticed the date.
Walter removed Gabriel’s laptop six weeks after Gabriel’s death.
The exact day the M-4 donor request was created.
They finally had a direct link.
Walter used Gabriel’s credentials.
Walter ordered M-4.
Walter wanted Emma impregnated with an unknown Mercer relative.
But the wrong sample—Gabriel’s—was used.
Richard whispered:
“So Gabriel’s paternity was an accident.”
Maybe.
Emma looked at the DNA test.
An accident that activated a multibillion-dollar trust.
An accident that destroyed Damon’s expected inheritance.
An accident that gave Claire temporary corporate power.
An accident that exposed Walter.
Too many consequences.
Then Samuel received the genetic comparison on M-4.
His face changed.
“What?”
Richard asked.
Samuel looked at Emma.
“M-4 isn’t Richard’s brother.”
“Then his son?”
Samuel shook his head.
“The profile is consistent with Richard’s son.”
Damon stood.
“Gabriel or me?”
“No.”
Silence.
Richard’s face emptied.
Samuel continued:
“A third son.”
Richard whispered:
“I have two sons.”
Samuel looked down.
“Genetically, you have three.”
Emma stared at Richard.
The old man seemed genuinely shattered.
Then Samuel read the estimated birth year.
Richard sat down.
Claire whispered:
“Who was born in 1978?”
Richard did not answer.
He did not need to.
Emma had seen the date somewhere.
She searched Margaret’s old files.
A photograph fell out.
Her mother beside a young woman holding a newborn.
On the back:
July 1978.
HELEN’S LAST SECRET.
Richard’s mother.
Helen Mercer.
And beneath it, a baby’s first name.
JONATHAN.
Richard stared at the photograph.
He whispered:
“My mother told me that baby died.”
The third Mercer son had not died.
Someone had erased him.
Walter had preserved his DNA.
And decades later, Walter had tried to make Emma carry Jonathan Mercer’s child.
May you like
The question was no longer only who Jonathan was.
It was why Richard’s own mother had hidden his existence from him.
