CHAPTER 20 — THE FIRST ETHAN BLACKWOOD
No one moved.
The child in Ethan’s arms looked no older than a few days.
Margaret’s claim was impossible.
Grant seized the DNA report.
“This is another fabricated record.”
Margaret pointed toward the newborn’s identification band.
“The child is part of a long-term preservation trial. St. Aldwyn developed experimental suspended-growth treatments for critically ill infants.”
Ethan looked down at the baby.
“You are saying he was kept alive for thirty years?”
“Not continuously,” Adrian said.
His voice had become distant.
“The research used cycles of induced hypothermia, cellular suppression and artificial circulation.”
Vanessa stared at him.
“You knew?”
“I knew the program existed. I believed every subject had died.”
Margaret approached Ethan carefully.
“The infant you are holding was born on the same night as you.”
“Who is he?”
“The biological son of Daniel Blackwood.”
The entire room seemed to tilt.
“Then he is the true heir,” Ethan said.
Margaret nodded.
“And I was the replacement.”
“You were the child Helen placed in his bassinet.”
Claire held her premature baby against her chest.
“Why preserve one child and raise the other?”
“Daniel’s biological son was born with a heart condition,” Margaret explained. “Helen believed he would die within days. She replaced him with a healthy child to protect the trust.”
“Whose child was I?”
Margaret’s eyes filled with something close to grief.
“That is the question Helen never answered.”
The baby in Ethan’s arms began struggling to breathe.
Adrian reached for him.
“He needs immediate cardiac support.”
Grant raised his weapon.
“No one leaves. That child is evidence.”
Ethan moved between Grant and Adrian.
“He is dying.”
“He died thirty years ago.”
Ethan’s expression hardened.
“So did half the people in this room, according to the records.”
Margaret handed Claire the full report.
The genetic results confirmed that Claire’s newborn had been created from an embryo labeled with Ethan’s name.
But the sample used in the procedure had not come from the adult Ethan standing in the room.
It came from preserved infant tissue belonging to the biological Blackwood heir.
The words hit Ethan slowly.
Claire’s baby had been fathered genetically by the preserved newborn.
The child in Ethan’s arms.
“That is why the report says Ethan Blackwood,” Adrian said. “Both of you have carried that identity.”
Claire looked down at her son.
“Then my baby is the biological son of a child who never grew up.”
“And the grandson of whichever brother fathered the preserved heir,” Vanessa added.
The succession line had not been restored.
It had been engineered.
The original infant could inherit Daniel’s fortune.
Claire’s newborn could inherit after him.
Ethan, the man raised as Blackwood, could be removed entirely.
Grant took the report and smiled.
“At last.”
Margaret realized too late.
“You never wanted to destroy the heir.”
“No,” Grant replied. “We wanted to identify him.”
His agents aimed their weapons toward Ethan and Adrian.
Grant touched the preserved baby’s cheek.
“The trust contains assets worth more than the company. Private land, defense contracts, medical patents. They belong to Daniel’s legitimate son.”
“Who do you represent?” Ethan asked.
“The people who paid for his preservation.”
The surviving Blackwood brother appeared behind Grant.
Blood soaked the bandage around his shoulder, but his gun remained steady.
“You will not take my son.”
Grant turned.
“Daniel or David?”
The man smiled.
“Does the name matter now?”
“It matters to the trust.”
The brother looked toward the preserved baby.
“That child is not mine.”
Margaret’s face changed.
“You told Daniel he was.”
“I told both brothers the child belonged to them.”
Ethan understood.
The uncertainty had begun even earlier than they believed.
“Who is his father?”
The brother looked at Margaret.
“She knows.”
Grant aimed his weapon at her.
Margaret slowly sat beside Claire.
“Thirty years ago, Helen used the Blackwood fertility program without permission. The preserved child was the first successful embryo created from samples belonging to several family lines.”
“Several?” Vanessa asked.
“A genetic composite.”
Adrian shook his head.
“That science did not exist at the time.”
“Not publicly.”
Margaret explained that the project had attempted to create a male heir with carefully selected markers from Daniel, David and Thomas Reed.
No single man was the father.
The child belonged genetically to all three bloodlines.
That was why standard tests had produced contradictory results.
That was why Helen hid him.
And that was why Claire’s newborn could connect every branch of the family.
Grant stepped toward Claire.
“Give me the baby.”
Claire held her son tighter.
“No.”
“The children belong to the project.”
Ethan moved beside her.
“They belong to no one but themselves.”
Grant raised his weapon.
Before he could fire, Noah attacked him from the side.
The gun discharged into the ceiling.
Vanessa pulled Claire behind the delivery bed. Adrian carried the preserved infant toward the surgical exit.
The wounded Blackwood brother fired at Grant’s agents.
Margaret reached for the dropped test results.
During the struggle, one of Grant’s men activated the hospital’s emergency destruction system.
A computerized voice filled the room.
THERMAL DECONTAMINATION WILL BEGIN IN FIVE MINUTES.
Noah dragged Grant away from the weapon.
“We need to leave now.”
Adrian opened the surgical exit.
Behind it was a narrow elevator.
Only four people could fit inside at once.
Ethan looked around the room.
Claire and her newborn.
Vanessa.
Noah.
Margaret.
Adrian carrying the preserved infant.
The wounded Blackwood brother.
There was no time for multiple trips.
“Take Claire and both children,” Ethan ordered.
Claire grabbed his arm.
“I’m not leaving without you.”
“You just gave birth.”
“And you just learned your entire life was stolen.”
The countdown reached four minutes.
Margaret pushed the test results into Ethan’s hands.
“There is another way out through the lake tunnel.”
“It will flood during decontamination,” Adrian warned.
Margaret looked toward the wounded brother.
“He knows the route.”
The man laughed weakly.
“You still believe I intend to save him?”
He aimed his weapon at Ethan.
Claire stepped between them.
“Before you fire, answer one question.”
The brother hesitated.
Claire’s voice changed.
Evelyn had returned.
“You were not the man who escaped the plane.”
The brother’s expression hardened.
“I remember your hands,” she continued. “The survivor had two damaged fingers before the crash. Your injury appeared afterward.”
Everyone looked toward the dead man being treated outside the boathouse.
The brother with the injured hand had been assumed to be Daniel.
But Claire was saying the injury itself had been copied.
“You are neither Daniel nor David,” she said.
“Who are you?”
The man lowered the gun slightly.
Then he looked at Noah.
Noah stared back at him.
A terrible recognition passed between them.
“Father?” Noah whispered.
The man smiled.
Thomas Reed had not died.
He had not merely assumed Daniel’s identity.
He had also played David.
For nineteen years, Thomas had moved between both names, using surgeries, injuries and controlled sightings to keep the brothers’ mystery alive.
“Where are Daniel and David?” Ethan demanded.
Thomas looked toward the preserved infant.
“One of them died in the crash.”
“And the other?”
Thomas glanced at Margaret.
“She buried him beneath the Blackwood estate.”
Margaret shook her head.
“No.”
Thomas laughed.
“You never checked the coffin after Helen moved it.”
The decontamination countdown reached two minutes.
The elevator doors began closing.
Vanessa pulled Claire inside. Adrian entered with the preserved child. Noah tried to follow.
Thomas grabbed him.
“You are coming with me.”
Noah struck his father, but Thomas held him tightly.
Ethan forced the doors apart.
“Let him go.”
Thomas pressed his gun against Noah’s side.
“I lost one son to the Blackwoods. I will not lose another.”
A new alarm sounded.
The hospital shook.
Water burst through cracks in the ceiling.
Claire reached toward Ethan from inside the elevator.
“Come with us!”
Ethan looked at the limited space.
He could enter only if someone else stayed behind.
Margaret stepped out.
“Go.”
Ethan stared at her.
“You may not be my mother.”
“No.”
Her expression finally broke.
“But I was there for your first breath.”
She pushed Ethan into the elevator.
The doors closed between them.
As the elevator rose, Ethan heard a gunshot below.
He did not know whether Thomas had fired at Margaret, Noah or the hospital controls.
The elevator stopped abruptly between floors.
The lights failed.
Adrian checked the preserved baby.
“He has no pulse.”
Claire held her own premature son closer.
Vanessa pressed the emergency button.
Nothing happened.
Then someone knocked from outside the elevator wall.
Three slow knocks.
A pause.
Two more.
The same code Claire had used earlier.
Danger.
Follow me.
A hidden panel opened in the ceiling.
A woman looked down at them.
She had Helen Carter’s face.
This time, Ethan recognized her from his earliest memories.
She had held him when he was a child.
She had sung to him when he was afraid.
She was the woman he had once called Mother.
“Helen?” he whispered.
The woman extended her hand.
“There is no time, Ethan.”
“Which Helen are you?”
“The first one.”
Claire stared at her.
“My mother died.”
Helen looked down at Claire’s newborn.
“No, sweetheart.”
She smiled sadly.
“You did.”
The elevator dropped several inches.
Helen reached further inside.
“Give me the children, and I will tell you what happened to the real Claire Carter.”
Ethan refused to release the preserved infant.
Helen’s expression darkened.
“Then you will all die carrying the wrong names.”
Below them, the underground hospital erupted in flames.
May you like
And before the elevator plunged into darkness, Claire’s newborn opened his eyes and whispered a single word no newborn should have been able to speak.
“Daniel.”
