CHAPTER 19 — THE CHILD WITH THE FAMILIAR FACE
Adrian pulled Ethan through a side door as gunfire continued in the corridor.
Vanessa and Noah followed, carrying Claire between them.
The newborn remained wrapped against Ethan’s chest.
They entered a hidden operating theater connected to the delivery room. Adrian sealed the door with a manual lock.
Claire’s contractions were now less than three minutes apart.
Noah searched the cabinets.
“Most of these supplies are expired.”
Adrian removed his jacket.
“I delivered two children before I became an attorney.”
Vanessa stared at him.
“You were a doctor?”
“I worked at St. Aldwyn.”
Claire gripped Ethan’s hand.
“Do not let him touch me.”
Adrian stopped.
“You remember me?”
“You were beside Helen at the clinic.”
“I was trying to stop her.”
“You held me down.”
“I held you still because she threatened to end the pregnancy if you woke.”
Ethan shoved Adrian against the wall.
“You knew my wife was carrying someone else’s child?”
“I knew an embryo had been transferred. I did not know whose.”
“Who ordered it?”
“Helen.”
“Helen is dead.”
Adrian looked toward the ceiling cameras.
“Helen has died three times. Each death belonged to a different woman.”
Vanessa understood.
“Helen Carter was not one person.”
Adrian nodded.
“It was an identity used by the sisters and later by several women inside the foundation’s medical network.”
The woman seen in the boardroom might have been Evelyn, another relative or someone surgically altered to resemble them.
The name Helen Carter had become a mask.
Claire cried out again.
Whatever answers remained would have to wait.
Noah prepared the limited equipment. Vanessa stayed beside Claire while Adrian examined the newborn.
“The baby’s heartbeat is becoming irregular.”
“The vial broke,” Ethan said.
Adrian smelled the remaining liquid on the broken syringe cap Noah had carried.
“This was not genetic medicine.”
Vanessa folded her arms.
“I told you.”
“It is a clotting agent,” Adrian said. “A concentrated dose used during premature delivery.”
Ethan looked at Noah.
“You were supposed to inject the baby?”
Noah appeared horrified.
“Helen said it would stabilize him.”
“It would have stopped his heart.”
Someone had manipulated Noah into nearly destroying the newborn.
The child’s existence threatened more than the Blackwood succession.
It threatened the entire false family structure.
A pounding began at the operating theater door.
Agent Grant called from outside.
“Open the door. We can protect the mother.”
Adrian lowered his voice.
“Grant financed the clinic where Claire’s embryo transfer occurred.”
“Why?” Ethan asked.
“He represents the original Blackwood investors. If no legitimate heir exists, the trust dissolves and the assets return to them.”
The surviving brother wanted a recognized heir.
Grant wanted no heir at all.
Helen’s network appeared to want uncertainty.
And Ethan still did not know what Claire wanted.
Her fingers suddenly closed around his hand.
“Ethan.”
Her voice sounded like herself again.
“Claire?”
“I remember Blackwood Lake.”
“Tell me later. You need to breathe.”
“No. You need to know before Evelyn comes back.”
She looked toward Vanessa.
“The man outside was on the plane.”
“The brother?”
Claire shook her head.
“Adrian.”
Everyone turned toward the attorney.
Adrian did not deny it.
“I was the medical escort.”
“You carried a child off the plane,” Claire said.
Adrian slowly lowered his hands.
“That child was supposed to be Ethan.”
Ethan’s chest tightened.
“I was on the plane?”
“No. The boy everyone believed was Ethan was on the plane.”
Adrian explained that Daniel had planned to secretly move his heir out of the country. Before takeoff, Helen switched the child.
The boy aboard the aircraft died in the crash.
The child remaining at the estate was later raised as Ethan Blackwood.
“Me,” Ethan said.
“Yes.”
“Then who died?”
Adrian looked at the newborn.
“Noah’s older brother.”
Noah moved toward him.
“I never had a brother.”
“You did for three months.”
Adrian revealed that Thomas Reed had provided his own infant son as a temporary replacement, believing the child would be returned after Daniel escaped.
Instead, the baby died in the crash.
Thomas spent years pursuing the surviving brothers, Helen and Margaret.
Eventually, he assumed Daniel’s public identity to gain access to the family.
Noah’s father had not simply become Daniel.
He had become Daniel to avenge his dead son.
The pounding at the door became louder.
Claire screamed as the baby began to arrive.
There was no time to relocate.
Adrian and Vanessa positioned themselves beside the delivery bed. Ethan stayed at Claire’s shoulder.
Minutes blurred into pain, fear and whispered instructions.
Then a newborn’s cry filled the hidden room.
Adrian lifted the premature baby carefully.
For one moment, no one spoke.
The child was small but alive.
Claire began crying with relief.
Ethan looked at the baby’s face.
A dark mark curved beneath the infant’s left ear.
Ethan had seen the same mark in one of the boathouse photographs.
On Thomas Reed.
Adrian noticed it too.
“That mark appears in the Reed family.”
Claire stared at her child.
“No.”
The baby could not belong to either Blackwood brother.
The genetic father might have been Thomas Reed.
Or one of his descendants.
Ethan looked toward Noah.
Noah stepped backward.
“I never provided a sample.”
Adrian’s face hardened.
“You did when you joined the Blackwood security division. Medical screening was mandatory.”
Noah looked at Claire in horror.
“You are saying that child could be mine?”
The operating theater door exploded inward.
Grant entered with his weapon raised.
Behind him stood Margaret.
She held the missing test results.
“Do not shoot,” she ordered.
Grant kept the gun aimed at Ethan.
Margaret opened the report.
“I know who fathered Claire’s baby.”
Vanessa demanded, “Who?”
Margaret looked at Noah.
Then at Ethan.
Then at the newborn in Adrian’s arms.
“The father is neither of them.”
She turned the final page toward Claire.
The printed name belonged to someone they believed had died in the plane crash.
BABY’S BIOLOGICAL FATHER: ETHAN BLACKWOOD
Ethan stared at the result.
“That makes no sense.”
Margaret’s voice trembled.
“It does when you understand the final secret.”
She looked at the newborn Ethan had carried from the nursery.
“One of these babies is not a newborn.”
The child in Ethan’s arms opened its eyes.
Claire stopped breathing.
The baby had the same unusual gray-green eyes as Ethan.
May you like
Margaret whispered:
“That child was born thirty years ago.”
