Chapter 13 - THE DONOR
The donor was not Luka.
For one irrational second, I had feared it would be.
Instead, the name belonged to a man I had never heard of.
Daniel Mercer.
Born in Ohio.
Former Marine.
Thirty-two years old at the time of donation.
No hereditary disease markers.
Brown hair.
Blue eyes.
A university degree.
Anonymous donor.
I stared at the photograph attached to the old registry.
Grace had his chin.
Something inside me cracked.
Not from sadness.
From recognition.
This stranger had given half the biological material that created my daughter.
And he had never known.
“Where is he?”
I asked.
Mia hesitated.
“He died four years ago.”
My chest tightened.
“How?”
“Car accident.”
I closed my eyes.
Grace would never meet him.
Never ask him why his eyes looked like hers.
Never hear his voice.
Then Luka spoke.
“There’s another problem.”
Of course there was.
Daniel Mercer’s donor sample had never been sold to Vale Biomedical.
The acquisition file showed something else.
It had been transferred illegally.
The authorization carried Adrian’s signature.
He had personally selected the donor.
Not a doctor.
Not an embryologist.
Adrian.
I looked at him across the boardroom.
“You chose him.”
Adrian’s face was wet with sweat.
“I reviewed profiles.”
“You chose the biological father of my child without telling me.”
“I wanted you to have a healthy baby.”
“You wanted a baby whose DNA could help you.”
His silence confirmed it.
Thomas stepped forward.
“Why Mercer?”
Adrian looked toward Victor.
Victor shook his head.
“Don’t.”
Adrian laughed bitterly.
“Why protect anything now?”
Victor’s expression hardened.
Adrian turned toward me.
“Daniel Mercer wasn’t random.”
My stomach tightened.
“He was related to the Vale family.”
“How?”
“His mother was Victor’s half sister.”
The room exploded with voices.
I stared at Victor.
Adrian had chosen a distant Vale relative as donor.
Not because he cared about my child.
Because Grace’s DNA would contain Vale-family markers.
Markers Adrian could use.
“To fake your paternity.”
The realization left my mouth as a whisper.
Adrian looked at the floor.
He had used my daughter’s conception to create genetic evidence suggesting he belonged biologically to the Vale bloodline.
If anyone challenged his inheritance, Grace’s DNA could be manipulated into supporting his claim.
The scheme was monstrous.
And clever.
But Adrian made one mistake.
Daniel Mercer’s relationship to Victor was documented in the hidden M-17 appendices.
My father knew exactly what the DNA would show.
Grace wasn’t evidence that Adrian belonged to the Vale line.
She was evidence that someone had engineered the appearance of it.
Mia gathered the documents.
“This is reproductive fraud.”
Adrian looked toward me.
“Elena, please.”
“Don’t.”
“I never meant to hurt Grace.”
“You used her before she existed.”
His face crumpled.
For the first time, Adrian Vale looked small.
Then Victor stood.
“There is still one envelope.”
Everyone went silent.
He looked at my father.
“You never recovered Subject C.”
Thomas’s expression sharpened.
Victor smiled.
“Without it, you cannot prove who Adrian’s father was.”
A voice came from the boardroom doorway.
“Yes, he can.”
May you like
Samuel Rourke stepped inside.
And in his hand was the missing envelope.
