CHAPTER 16 — THE CHILD IN THE RECORDS
Gabriel and Marcus escaped the vault after security cut through the emergency door.
They returned to the hospital carrying the files.
Khloe examined the records from the fertility clinic.
One document contained her name.
Another contained Marcus’s.
A third listed her unborn daughter as SUBJECT H-2.
“What does H-2 mean?” Khloe asked.
Dr. Reed reviewed the medical notes.
“I don’t know.”
Gabriel opened a decades-old research report.
The project was called HEIRLINE.
It had been financed jointly by the Cole and Thorne families.
The original goal was to treat inherited heart disease.
But later documents mentioned fertility selection, succession planning, and “genetic continuity.”
Marcus looked sick.
“My father funded experiments?”
“So did mine,” Khloe said.
Gabriel shook his head.
“Daniel withdrew from the program when he learned embryos were being created without full parental consent.”
Khloe placed one hand over her stomach.
“Was my daughter conceived naturally?”
Silence filled the room.
Marcus looked at her.
“Of course she was.”
“Then why is she in these files?”
Dr. Reed requested Khloe’s prenatal records from the fertility clinic she had visited before becoming pregnant.
The system showed that one sample had been transferred to the Thorne laboratory.
Khloe had never authorized it.
Another page appeared.
SUBJECT H-1: VIABLE FEMALE INFANT
STATUS: RELOCATED
Gabriel looked toward the baby bracelet found in the vault.
“The first Thorne daughter.”
Khloe felt the room tilt.
There had been another child.
A hidden heir.
And someone had removed her from the family.
Marcus read the final line.
SUBJECT H-2 MUST NOT REACH LIVE BIRTH UNTIL H-1 IS RECOVERED.
Khloe’s blood ran cold.
Her daughter was H-2.
The attack had not been intended merely to control an inheritance.
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Someone believed Khloe’s baby threatened the existence of another woman.
The missing first heir.
