Chapter 4 - The Father Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
My father was alive.
Those four words should have filled me with joy.
Instead, they made me furious.
Seventeen years.
Seventeen birthdays.
Seventeen Christmases.
My high school graduation.
College.
My mother’s funeral.
My pregnancy.
The death of my babies that had never happened.
Every major moment of my life had passed while Richard Hayes remained somewhere in the world, breathing.
We left Bishop with Roman’s private medical team and drove toward the address she had given us.
It was an abandoned lakeside cabin two hours north of Chicago.
Roman sat beside me.
I stared out the window.
“You can hate him later,” Roman said.
“I already hate him.”
“Good.”
I turned.
“That was not comforting.”
“I wasn’t trying to comfort you.”
Strangely, that helped.
He understood anger better than sympathy.
My phone contained twelve missed calls from Paul.
Then a text.
DON’T COME BACK.
Under ordinary circumstances, losing my job would have terrified me.
I deleted the message.
Roman noticed.
“Problem?”
“I’ve been fired.”
“You hated that job.”
“I also enjoy eating.”
“I’ll hire you.”
I stared at him.
“To do what?”
He glanced at the triplets’ empty car seats behind us.
“They apparently selected your position.”
Despite everything, I laughed.
It escaped unexpectedly.
Roman looked surprised.
So was I.
Then we both became quiet.
“Do you love them?” I asked.
His eyes moved toward the window.
“Yes.”
No hesitation.
The answer hurt.
Not because I doubted him.
Because I believed him.
“What happens if DNA proves they’re mine?”
“They are yours.”
He said it before thinking.
I looked at him.
“You believe it?”
“I stopped doubting when Lily fell asleep in your arms.”
“That isn’t scientific.”
“No.”
His jaw tightened.
“But neither is watching three children who refuse to speak suddenly call a stranger Mom.”
I swallowed.
“They’re not strangers to me.”
“No.”
He looked at me.
“And you aren’t one to them.”
The question neither of us wanted to discuss remained suspended between us.
If they were biologically mine, what was Roman?
Legally?
Emotionally?
Would I take them away?
Could I?
Should I?
Roman had been their entire world.
I had been their missing beginning.
There was no simple answer.
The cabin appeared around noon.
Door open.
No vehicle.
Roman’s men searched first.
Then Donovan signaled.
Clear.
I entered.
Dust covered most surfaces.
A coffee cup sat on the kitchen table.
Still warm.
“He was here.”
Roman touched it.
“Recently.”
I noticed an old photograph beside the cup.
My mother.
Young.
Laughing.
Holding infant me.
My father stood beside her.
I picked it up.
My eyes blurred.
Behind us, a floor creaked.
Roman spun.
“Hands where I can see them.”
An older man stood in the doorway.
Gray hair.
Thin face.
Blue eyes identical to mine.
I knew him instantly.
“Pamela.”
My father’s voice broke.
I couldn’t move.
He took one step.
I slapped him.
Roman said nothing.
Neither did Donovan.
My father touched his cheek.
“I deserved that.”
“You deserved seventeen years of them.”
I struck his chest.
“You were alive?”
“Yes.”
“You let me bury you!”
“I know.”
“Mom died believing you were dead!”
His face collapsed.
“I know.”
I hit him again.
Then I started crying.
He opened his arms.
I hated myself for falling into them.
For one minute, I was eleven years old again.
He smelled different.
Older.
But the way his hand rested against the back of my head was familiar.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“You don’t get seventeen years back.”
“No.”
“You don’t get Mom back.”
“I know.”
“You don’t get my children’s first year.”
His arms tightened.
“I know.”
I pulled away.
“How did you know about them?”
His eyes moved toward Roman.
“Adrian.”
Roman stiffened.
“You knew my brother.”
“Yes.”
“Did you know he was going to intercept the babies?”
“I asked him to.”
Roman’s face hardened.
My father explained quickly.
Hart had located him eighteen months earlier.
Richard learned Hart was watching me.
When I became pregnant with triplets, he realized why.
He tried to reach me anonymously.
Hart intercepted him.
Richard contacted Adrian Voss because Adrian had already uncovered suspicious cargo moving through Voss-controlled shipping warehouses.
“He was supposed to bring the babies somewhere safe,” my father said.
Roman’s voice became cold.
“He brought them to me.”
“He trusted you.”
Roman looked away.
“Then he died.”
My father nodded.
“I’m sorry.”
“Who killed him?”
“Hart ordered it.”
Roman stepped closer.
“Proof?”
Richard reached beneath his jacket.
Four weapons immediately pointed toward him.
He froze.
“Flash drive.”
Roman nodded.
Richard removed it slowly.
“This contains the original financial ledger.”
Donovan took it.
“Copies?”
“Three.”
“Where?”
“One with me. One held by an attorney under instructions to release it if I die.”
“And the third?”
Richard looked at me.
“With Pamela.”
I stared at him.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Your mother’s necklace.”
My hand moved toward my throat.
I had worn it for years.
A small silver locket.
After my mother died, I stored it inside a jewelry box.
Hart had searched my apartment before.
The threatening photo flashed through my mind.
“Is that what they want?”
“Yes.”
“What’s inside?”
“A micro-storage chip containing research documents.”
I felt sick.
“My mother knew?”
“She helped me.”
“Did she know you were alive?”
“No.”
His voice cracked.
“That was the cruelest part.”
I turned away.
Roman quietly asked, “Why didn’t you expose Hart seventeen years ago?”
“I tried.”
Richard looked older suddenly.
“Three witnesses disappeared. One investigator died. The corporation funding Hart’s work had politicians, medical executives, and law enforcement contacts.”
“What corporation?”
“Meridian Biomedical.”
Roman glanced at Donovan.
I knew the name.
Everyone did.
Meridian was one of the largest private medical companies in the Midwest.
Hospitals.
Laboratories.
Pharmaceutical contracts.
Billions of dollars.
Richard continued.
“Hart isn’t the top.”
“Who is?”
“CEO Nathan Vale.”
Roman’s expression changed.
“You know him?”
Roman gave a humorless smile.
“He has been trying to buy one of my shipping companies for two years.”
My father nodded.
“Because your brother discovered what they were transporting.”
The pieces connected.
Adrian found illegal medical shipments.
He rescued my babies.
He died.
Roman inherited the problem without understanding it.
And I had walked into his restaurant carrying the missing half of a seventeen-year-old secret.
A security man entered.
“Movement outside.”
Roman became alert.
“How many?”
“Unknown.”
Then the power went out.
The cabin fell dark.
Gunfire erupted.
Roman grabbed me.
“Down.”
Windows shattered.
Richard pulled me behind a wall.
Roman’s team returned fire.
“Back exit!” Donovan shouted.
We ran.
Outside, snowmelt had turned the ground to mud.
I slipped.
Roman caught me.
A vehicle tore through the trees.
Men emerged.
One shouted, “Take Hayes alive!”
Which Hayes?
Me?
My father?
Both?
Roman pushed me behind an SUV.
Richard fired at an attacker.
“Go!”
A bullet struck the vehicle.
Glass exploded.
Roman dragged me toward another car.
Then someone stepped from behind the cabin.
Dr. Elias Hart.
Silver hair.
Same calm face.
Same man who once leaned over my hospital bed.
“Pamela.”
I froze.
Roman raised his weapon.
Hart smiled.
“You always did look like your mother.”
Rage overwhelmed fear.
“You stole my children.”
“No.”
“You told me they were dead.”
“For your own safety.”
I laughed in disbelief.
“You expect me to believe that?”
Hart looked toward Richard.
“Your father has spent your entire life lying to you.”
Richard shouted, “Don’t listen.”
Hart continued.
“Ask him why you were really part of the research.”
I looked at my father.
His face changed.
Something he had not told me.
“What does he mean?”
“Pamela, not now.”
Hart smiled.
“There it is.”
Roman kept his weapon trained on him.
“Talk.”
Hart looked directly at me.
“You were not simply born with a rare mutation.”
My pulse quickened.
“You were the result of the first successful trial.”
Richard went pale.
“Stop.”
Hart’s smile widened.
“Your father didn’t discover you were special after you were born, Pamela.”
The world tilted.
“He made you that way before you were born.”
I stared at Richard.
“No.”
He could not meet my eyes.
Hart continued.
“And that is why your triplets mattered.”
Roman’s expression darkened.
“They weren’t after Pamela’s natural genetics.”
“No.”
Hart answered calmly.
“They were after proof that the modification could be inherited.”
My stomach turned.
The children.
My babies.
Evidence.
Not people to these monsters.
Proof.
Hart raised his hands.
“Come with me and nobody needs to die.”
Roman laughed once.
Cold.
“You entered the wrong forest if you expected that answer.”
Hart’s men advanced.
Then distant sirens appeared.
Hart’s smile vanished.
Roman looked almost amused.
“I called federal agents before we left Chicago.”
Hart stepped backward.
“You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I know enough.”
He fled toward the trees.
Shots erupted.
Then silence.
When federal vehicles arrived, Hart was gone.
But several of his men were captured.
My father survived.
So did Roman.
And for the first time, law enforcement outside Hart’s control possessed actual evidence.
That evening, DNA results returned from a private laboratory Roman trusted.
Probability of maternity:
99.9998 percent.
Leo.
Miles.
Lily.
My children.
I stared at the document.
Roman stood across the room.
Neither of us spoke.
Finally I looked at him.
“They’re mine.”
“Yes.”
A tear slid down my face.
Then I saw something in Roman’s expression.
Fear.
The same fear he had shown in the restaurant.
Only now I understood it.
He was afraid I would take them.
I folded the paper.
“They’re yours too.”
Roman stared at me.
“What?”
“You raised them.”
His face remained guarded.
“I won’t fight you.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
“They need their mother.”
“They also need their father.”
He looked down.
“I’m not their father.”
I stepped closer.
“Tell them that.”
From the nursery came Lily’s sleepy voice.
“Dad.”
Roman closed his eyes.
I smiled through tears.
“You see the problem?”
He almost laughed.
But before either of us could say more, Donovan entered holding my phone.
“There’s a video message.”
“From who?”
“Hart.”
Roman played it.
Hart appeared in a dark room.
Behind him sat a woman tied to a chair.
Dr. Bishop.
Alive.
Hart leaned toward the camera.
“Bring me the locket, Pamela.”
He smiled.
“Or the doctor who saved your children dies.”
The screen went black.
May you like
And suddenly, getting my babies back was no longer enough. To end this nightmare, I would have to walk directly toward the man who started it.
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