Chapter 4 - PROJECT ORION
The email contained no message.
Only an attachment.
Rachel wanted me to delete it.
I opened it.
A scanned Harrison Global document filled the screen.
The date was six years earlier.
One year before my divorce.
PROJECT ORION - CONFIDENTIAL GENETIC SCREENING INITIATIVE.
My stomach tightened.
Ryan had always told me his genetic testing had been part of a routine executive health program.
Apparently it hadn’t been.
The project listed twelve Harrison executives.
Only one name was marked in red.
Ryan Harrison.
Beside it were the words:
PRIORITY HEREDITARY SUBJECT.
Rachel frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
Another page listed environmental exposure studies, inherited neurological markers, and long-term fertility outcomes.
Then I saw my own name.
Emily Parker Harrison.
STATUS: POTENTIAL MATERNAL DATA SOURCE.
I stopped breathing.
“They were studying me too.”
Rachel grabbed her phone.
“Call Ryan.”
I hesitated.
Five years of habit told me not to.
Five years of protecting myself told me his family was dangerous.
But those days were over.
I called.
Ryan answered before the first ring finished.
“Emily?”
“I need you to come over.”
Silence.
“Now?”
“Yes.”
“Is something wrong with the boys?”
“Not exactly.”
He arrived twenty-six minutes later.
No limousine.
No security team.
Just Ryan in a rental sedan.
I almost laughed when I saw it.
“What?”
he asked.
“I’ve never seen you drive something worth less than a house.”
“Can we save the billionaire insults until after you tell me why I’m here?”
I showed him Project Orion.
He read the first page.
Then the second.
His expression darkened.
“I’ve never seen this.”
“Your genetic sample is attached.”
“I gave blood during an executive physical.”
“Your father apparently used it for more.”
Ryan reached the page with my name.
His jaw tightened.
“I’m calling legal.”
“No Harrison attorney.”
He stopped.
“Why?”
“Because your father controls them.”
Ryan stared at me.
Then slowly lowered his phone.
“You’re right.”
That was a sentence I had waited years to hear.
It no longer felt satisfying.
We hired an independent attorney named Julia Bennett.
By midnight, she had traced Project Orion to an old Harrison subsidiary.
Northstar Biological Research.
The company had been dissolved three months after our divorce.
Ryan looked at the address.
“I know that building.”
“Where?”
“Connecticut.”
“My father used to take me there when I was a kid.”
I stared at him.
“For what?”
“I thought it was a medical clinic.”
His face changed.
“He made me do tests.”
“What tests?”
“Blood.”
“Memory assessments.”
“Reaction tests.”
“Scans.”
A chill moved through me.
“How old were you?”
“Eight.”
The room became silent.
Then Julia found a final corporate document.
Northstar had not truly closed.
Its assets had been transferred.
To a private foundation.
The foundation’s beneficiary was listed as Charles Harrison.
And its current medical director had a name I recognized immediately.
Dr. Michael Reeves.
May you like
The man whose text messages Ryan had once accused me of hiding.
The man he thought had been my lover.
