Chapter 9 - Victor's Father Was Watching Him
Michael Hale had not randomly adopted Victor.
He worked for Thomas.
For twenty-two years.
He was a pediatric researcher.
His public employment records had been falsified.
Susan Hale knew nothing.
Michael accepted baby Victor from Thomas and raised him under instructions to document development.
Height.
Heart function.
Cognition.
Illness.
Healing.
Everything.
Victor remembered annual “family checkups.”
Always the same clinic.
Always excessive blood draws.
He thought his father was cautious.
He had been collecting data.
Victor broke.
Not dramatically.
He sat alone in the hospital corridor and stared at his hands.
“My father loved me.”
Emma heard him.
Maybe he had.
Human beings could participate in terrible systems and still feel real love.
That was what made betrayal harder.
Michael eventually turned against Thomas.
Evidence showed he stole Miriam's safe after the fire.
Not for Thomas.
To hide it.
He preserved the notary seal.
Trust records.
Embryo documentation.
Years later, he gave part of it to Anna Bennett.
That explained Claire's box.
Michael had been trying to dismantle the study.
Then he died in a boating accident when Victor was nineteen.
No body.
Emma almost laughed when she heard that.
“Apparently nobody in this family stays dead without paperwork.”
Robert did not smile.
They checked.
Michael's death had never been conclusively verified.
Victor stared.
“My father could be alive?”
Perhaps.
Then Claire found a handwritten note from Anna:
M.H. says Thomas is no longer the one running W-17.
The date:
twelve years earlier.
If Thomas wasn't running it—
who was?
Another note:
T thinks he is in control. Let him.
Claire read it twice.
Someone was manipulating Thomas too.
The entire current scheme could be Thomas's.
Or someone could be allowing him to believe it was.
Then Emma received an ultrasound image from an unknown number.
Her baby.
Taken that morning at the hospital.
Someone had access even now.
Text:
ROBERT CAN'T PROTECT YOU FROM WHAT HE STARTED.
Emma showed her father.
His face changed.
“What did you start?”
Robert looked older suddenly.
Before W-17 became fetal medicine, Robert had served in special operations.
After leaving the military, he invested family money in Miriam's research.
He believed regenerative medicine could help children.
He recruited the first outside scientist.
A man he trusted from military medical work.
Dr. Michael Hale.
Victor's adoptive father.
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Robert had brought Michael into W-17.
The conspiracy that eventually surrounded Victor existed because Robert opened the door.
