Chapter 12 - The Blood Vial That Never Reached the Lab
Elmrove was in lockdown when they arrived.
Maryanne’s room was empty.
Adeline stopped in the doorway.
The bed was disturbed.
Window open.
A nurse crying nearby.
Cassian entered behind her.
“Security footage.”
Within minutes they saw it.
A man wearing medical scrubs wheeled Maryanne through a service exit.
His face remained covered by a mask.
Adeline stared.
“He took her.”
Cassian placed one hand on her shoulder.
“We’ll find her.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes.”
“You keep making promises you can’t control.”
His jaw tightened.
“I know.”
It cost him something to admit it.
Gabriel arrived.
He studied the footage.
“That’s not Lucien.”
Cassian turned.
“You recognize him?”
“The walk.”
Gabriel replayed it.
“Ezra.”
Silence.
Cassian’s face emptied.
“No.”
Gabriel pointed.
“Watch the right leg. Slight hesitation after the knee injury.”
Ezra had injured his knee playing football at sixteen.
Cassian knew the gait.
Adeline whispered, “Why would he take her?”
Cassian called him.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Then a message arrived.
COME TO LAKE FOREST. ALONE. I CAN EXPLAIN.
Cassian showed the others.
Gabriel swore.
Adeline grabbed her coat.
“No.”
Cassian looked at her.
“I am coming.”
“No.”
“My mother is there.”
“We don’t know that.”
“Exactly.”
Their argument lasted thirty seconds.
Adeline won because she walked to the car and refused to get out.
At Lake Forest, Ezra was waiting.
Maryanne sat beside the fireplace.
Safe.
Wrapped in a blanket.
Adeline ran to her.
“Mom.”
Maryanne smiled.
“Addie.”
Relief almost knocked Adeline down.
Cassian stared at Ezra.
“You kidnapped her.”
“I removed her before Lucien’s people reached Elmrove.”
“You might have called.”
“I believed your phone was compromised.”
“Why?”
“Because mine was.”
Ezra placed several devices on the table.
Tracking software.
Interception hardware.
Lucien had been listening for weeks.
Ezra continued.
“I had to make it look like his team took Maryanne.”
Gabriel looked around.
“Then where is Lucien?”
“I don’t know.”
Cassian’s anger remained.
“Why bring her here?”
“Because she remembers where Henry hid the original blood vial.”
Adeline looked at Maryanne.
“The vial?”
Maryanne nodded.
“Henry found it.”
Everyone stared.
Adeline sat beside her.
“Mom, where?”
Maryanne hummed softly.
Then pointed toward the fireplace.
Behind one loose stone was a small metal box.
Inside lay a laboratory vial.
Label:
C. RALDI — 02:43
Adeline recognized her handwriting.
“The vial I drew.”
Ezra nodded.
“Rosalind took it. Henry later recovered it.”
Cassian looked at him.
“Why does it matter now?”
“Because it contains more than proof you were fertile.”
Ezra handed Adeline the old laboratory report.
She read.
Then read again.
Her face changed.
“What?”
She looked at Cassian.
“There was something in your blood that night.”
“Poison?”
“Medication.”
She pointed.
“A reproductive suppression compound.”
Gabriel frowned.
“Meaning?”
“Someone had been giving Cassian medication designed to suppress fertility.”
Cassian stared.
“For how long?”
“Based on the marker levels, possibly years.”
The false diagnosis had not been enough.
Someone had chemically ensured it became temporarily true.
Adeline’s mind raced.
“Coffee.”
Cassian looked at her.
“What?”
“You drink black coffee every night.”
“Yes.”
“Who prepares it?”
Silence.
Odette often did.
But when Odette was away?
Ezra looked at Cassian.
“Rosalind.”
Cassian immediately rejected it.
“No.”
But Adeline remembered the night she first moved in.
Cassian alone in the kitchen.
Cold bread.
Black coffee.
Gloves.
She asked Maryanne.
“Mom, did Dad ever mention medicine?”
Maryanne stared at the fire.
Then whispered, “The old lady.”
Adeline’s blood went cold.
Cassian did not move.
Maryanne continued.
“She said it was safer.”
Cassian’s face changed.
“Rosalind.”
Ezra looked away.
The final betrayal was not Lucien.
Not entirely.
Rosalind had known the diagnosis was false.
And rather than tell Cassian, she had kept him medicated.
Why?
Back at the mansion, Cassian confronted her.
Rosalind did not deny it.
“Yes.”
Adeline felt sick.
“You drugged him?”
“I protected him.”
Cassian’s voice was terrifyingly calm.
“From what?”
“Children.”
No one spoke.
Rosalind continued.
“You were already a target. A child would become another.”
“That was my decision.”
“You were twenty-seven.”
“I was a grown man.”
“You were my grandson.”
Cassian took off his gloves.
He placed them on the table.
A gesture Adeline now understood.
No hiding.
No protection.
No barrier.
“You stole ten years from me.”
Rosalind began crying.
“I thought I was saving your life.”
“You taught everyone in this family the same lesson.”
“What?”
“That fear justifies control.”
She stared.
Cassian continued.
“Lucien controlled Gabriel because he feared losing power. Ezra Sr. controlled everyone because he feared being insignificant. You controlled me because you feared losing me.”
His voice broke slightly.
“And none of you noticed you were becoming the same person.”
Rosalind lowered her head.
Cassian walked out.
Adeline followed.
He stopped in the courtyard.
For several moments he said nothing.
Then:
“I could have had children.”
Adeline stood beside him.
“Yes.”
“I could have known.”
“Yes.”
“I believed there was something broken in me.”
Her eyes filled.
“Cassian.”
He looked at her.
She took his hand.
“You’re going to know this one.”
His gaze dropped to her stomach.
Adeline placed his palm there.
There was no movement yet.
Too early.
But symbolically it was enough.
Cassian closed his eyes.
Then sirens sounded beyond the gates.
Not police.
Security alarm.
Gabriel ran outside.
“Someone breached the west entrance.”
Cassian moved Adeline behind him.
A car crashed through the gates.
The driver door opened.
Lucien stumbled out.
Blood on his sleeve, but alive.
He raised both empty hands.
“Don’t shoot.”
Cassian stared.
Lucien looked terrified.
Not of Cassian.
Of whoever had followed him.
“There’s something worse than me,” he said.
May you like
And behind him, three black vehicles appeared at the end of the road.
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