Chapter 6 - The Twelve Embryos
Daniel did not go alone.
He simply made sure Nathan Caldwell believed he had.
The meeting location was an abandoned medical office forty minutes outside the city.
Evan wanted police involvement.
Daniel agreed, but only at a distance.
"If Caldwell sees marked vehicles, he'll disappear."
"He may already be setting a trap."
"Then he'll discover I'm difficult to trap."
Evan stared at him.
"This is exactly the kind of sentence billionaires say before making extremely stupid decisions."
Daniel almost smiled.
"Stay in the surveillance van."
"Gladly."
Daniel entered the building at 9:03 p.m.
Caldwell waited in what had once been a reception room.
He looked nothing like the polished physician in old photographs.
His hair was longer.
His suit cheap.
Dark circles sat beneath his eyes.
"You brought security."
Daniel didn't bother denying it.
"You asked a billionaire whose daughter was threatened to come alone. What did you expect?"
Caldwell gave a humorless smile.
"Fair."
Daniel remained standing.
"Twelve embryos."
Caldwell looked toward the boarded windows.
"Possibly more."
"Start talking."
"What Richard asked me to do was wrong."
"That's an impressive medical assessment."
Caldwell ignored the sarcasm.
"I was in financial trouble."
"Twenty-five thousand dollars."
"That wasn't why I agreed."
Daniel waited.
Caldwell sighed.
"My wife and I lost a child too."
Daniel's anger sharpened.
"Don't use grief to excuse what you did."
"I'm not."
"Then why mention it?"
"Because when Richard told me Claire's story, I convinced myself I was saving something."
"Something?"
"A possibility."
Daniel thought of Claire's letter.
If somehow that little possibility becomes a person…
He hated how easily grief had allowed people to justify decisions that weren't theirs.
"So you forged my signature."
"Yes."
"And transferred the embryo to Maria."
"Yes."
"Why her?"
"She was already approved. Her husband had died. She had no viable embryos of her own. She wanted to continue."
Daniel's jaw tightened.
"You decided she deserved my embryo."
"I told myself the embryo deserved a chance."
"You keep speaking about it like you were God."
Caldwell looked away.
"I know."
"Do you?"
Daniel stepped closer.
"Because Sophia exists. She has a mother who spent months terrified somebody would take her away. She has a dead genetic mother who explicitly said the decision belonged to me. And I lost almost three years with my daughter because you decided your judgment mattered more than everyone else's."
Caldwell nodded slowly.
"You're right."
Daniel almost preferred excuses.
Remorse was harder to fight.
"Tell me about the others."
Caldwell sat.
"It started before Richard."
Daniel became still.
"Who?"
"Dr. Malcolm Reeves."
Daniel knew the name.
Founder of the fertility center.
Highly respected.
Retired two years earlier.
"He believed unused embryos shouldn't be destroyed."
"Lots of people believe things. That doesn't authorize theft."
"He stopped distinguishing between belief and permission."
Daniel felt sick.
"How many?"
"I personally know of twelve questionable transfers."
"Successful births?"
"Eight confirmed."
Maria's story multiplied instantly.
Eight families.
Eight children.
Eight biological parents who might not know.
"Why wasn't this discovered?"
"Records were altered."
"By you?"
"Sometimes."
"Who else?"
"Reeves. A nurse named Patricia Bell. An administrator."
"Name."
Caldwell hesitated.
"Thomas Hale."
Daniel stopped.
"Hale?"
"Yes."
"Any relation to Victor Hale?"
Caldwell looked confused.
"His older brother."
Daniel felt everything connect.
Victor Hale.
Daniel's chief operating officer.
The man whose media consultant had visited Richard.
"You expect me to believe my COO's brother helped cover this up?"
"I don't care what you believe."
"Where is Thomas?"
"Dead."
Daniel remembered vaguely.
Victor's brother had died in a boating accident two years earlier.
"What did Victor know?"
"I don't know."
"But he knows now."
"Probably."
Daniel paced.
"Why leak the story?"
"Because scandal gives him leverage."
"Leverage for what?"
"To keep you from forcing the clinic investigation into public view."
Daniel stopped.
"Why would Victor care? His brother is dead."
"Because Thomas wasn't just an administrator."
Caldwell reached into his jacket.
Security immediately spoke through Daniel's hidden earpiece.
"Hands visible."
Daniel raised one finger subtly.
Caldwell withdrew a flash drive.
"He owned fourteen percent of the clinic through shell companies."
Daniel took it.
"So?"
"Several families reached settlements after storage failures. If systematic unauthorized transfers become public, those settlements could reopen. There could be criminal investigations. Insurance claims. Lawsuits."
"Against Victor?"
"Thomas left his estate to him."
Daniel understood.
Victor had inherited the financial liability.
"How much?"
"Potentially hundreds of millions."
Not enough to ruin Victor personally.
Enough to destroy his influence.
"Why threaten Sophia?"
Caldwell's face hardened.
"I told you, I didn't."
"Who did?"
"I suspect Victor's people."
Daniel's earpiece clicked.
Evan's voice.
"We have movement outside."
Daniel didn't react.
"Proof?"
Caldwell pointed to the flash drive.
"Everything I kept."
Daniel put it into his pocket.
"Why give it to me?"
"Because I'm tired."
"Try again."
Caldwell looked at him.
"Because someone broke into my apartment yesterday."
Daniel remained silent.
"They didn't take money. They didn't take electronics. They took clinic documents."
"You made copies."
"Yes."
Caldwell laughed bitterly.
"I've been running from consequences for three years. Now I'm running from people trying to erase the evidence."
Lights moved outside.
Daniel heard tires.
Security spoke again.
"Two vehicles. No plates."
Daniel looked at Caldwell.
"Did you tell anyone you were meeting me?"
"No."
"Then we leave."
A loud crash came from the rear of the building.
Caldwell jumped.
Daniel didn't.
Security rushed inside.
Within seconds, Daniel was escorted through a side exit.
No violence followed.
Whoever arrived apparently fled after seeing Daniel's security.
But the message was clear.
Someone cared enough about Caldwell's evidence to follow him.
At the mansion, Maria waited awake.
Sophia slept upstairs.
Daniel placed the flash drive on the table.
"Eight children."
Maria stared.
"What?"
"At least eight successful births may have come from unauthorized transfers."
She sat slowly.
"Oh my God."
"You and Sophia weren't the only ones."
Maria covered her mouth.
Daniel told her about Victor.
Her expression tightened.
"He's the man from your company?"
"Yes."
"Could he hurt Sophia?"
Daniel didn't answer immediately.
"No one is going to hurt her."
"That's not what I asked."
He met her eyes.
"I don't know."
Maria stood.
"Then I should take her somewhere else."
"No."
"Daniel."
"Security is strongest here."
"Strongest for you."
"For both of you."
Maria shook her head.
"This is happening because I'm here."
"This is happening because people committed crimes before you ever met me."
"If Sophia hadn't run to you—"
"I would still deserve to know she exists."
Maria looked away.
Daniel softened.
"And she deserves to know me."
That stopped her.
"Do you want that?"
He glanced toward the ceiling.
"Yes."
The answer came easier than he expected.
Maria's eyes filled.
"Even after two days?"
"I've missed almost three years. I'm not missing more because powerful men are afraid of paperwork."
Maria laughed through tears.
Daniel smiled.
Then Evan entered carrying his laptop.
"We found something on Caldwell's drive."
Daniel's expression changed.
"What?"
"A ledger."
Payments.
Dates.
Embryo numbers.
Names.
Daniel reviewed it.
Richard's payment appeared.
$25,000.
Then several others.
One payment was much larger.
$500,000.
Payer:
T.H. Holdings
Thomas Hale.
Recipient notation:
Priority biological profile requested.
Daniel frowned.
"What does that mean?"
Evan scrolled.
"There's an embryo number."
Daniel looked at Dr. Lawson's list of affected files.
The number belonged to another couple.
But something else caught his eye.
Recipient last name.
Mercer.
Daniel looked at Evan.
Evan had gone completely pale.
"What?"
Evan didn't speak.
Daniel repeated.
"Evan?"
His oldest friend sat down.
"My sister."
Daniel stared.
"What about her?"
"Rachel used embryo donation."
Daniel remembered.
Rachel Mercer lived in Boston.
She and her wife had a five-year-old son.
"You're saying—"
"I don't know."
Evan's hands shook.
"Her clinic was affiliated with Whitfield Fertility."
Daniel looked at the ledger again.
Recipient:
Rachel Mercer.
The scandal had just touched another person Daniel loved.
Evan called his sister.
She confirmed the embryo transfer date.
It matched the ledger.
Then she said something that made both men silent.
"When our son was two, the clinic contacted us and asked for additional confidentiality paperwork."
Evan's face changed.
"What kind?"
"They said there had been a donor records problem."
"Who called?"
"A man named Thomas Hale."
Daniel and Evan looked at each other.
The pattern was real.
Victor's brother had known.
Potentially orchestrated it.
And Victor might now be destroying evidence.
Daniel's phone buzzed.
An email from Victor himself.
Emergency board meeting tomorrow. 9:00 a.m. Your recent personal scandal has created concern regarding leadership stability.
Daniel stared at the message.
Evan laughed bitterly.
"He leaks your daughter to the media, then calls a meeting about the scandal."
Daniel's expression went cold.
Victor wanted the company.
He expected Daniel to be distracted.
Ashamed.
Defensive.
Daniel had spent years making business his refuge from grief.
Now business had invaded his family.
The next morning, Daniel entered Whitfield Technologies headquarters.
Cameras surrounded the entrance.
Reporters shouted.
"Daniel! Is Maria Alvarez your mistress?"
"Is the child yours?"
"Did you hide a secret family?"
Daniel didn't answer.
He walked directly into the boardroom.
Victor Hale sat at the far end.
Silver-haired.
Perfect suit.
Calm smile.
"Daniel."
"Victor."
Directors shifted uncomfortably.
Victor folded his hands.
"We need to discuss the reputational damage your personal conduct is causing."
Daniel placed a folder on the table.
"Absolutely."
Victor's smile widened.
Then Daniel continued.
"Let's start with your dead brother and the fertility clinic."
Victor's smile disappeared.
The room went silent.
Daniel sat.
For the first time since Sophia had run into his arms, he felt completely in control.
"After that," he said, "we can discuss which one of us represents a reputational risk."
But Victor did something Daniel didn't expect.
He laughed.
Then he leaned back and said:
"You still think this is about your company?"
Daniel stared at him.
Victor's smile returned.
"No, Daniel. This started with Claire."
May you like
And the mention of his wife's name changed everything again.
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