Chapter 4 - THE LAB IN BLACKWOOD RIDGE
The air in the dusty nursery went dead. The only sound was the crackle of burning timbers from the floor below and the high-pitched whine of the computer terminal finishing its data transfer.
“Put the gun down, Jonathan,” Claire said, stepping forward so her body completely obscured Ethan, who was cowering behind the white wooden crib. “It’s over. The police are at the front gates. The entire estate is surrounded.”
Jonathan laughed—a wet, ragged sound devoid of sanity. “The police? You think local cops can touch me, Claire? I own the district attorney. I own the state senators. The moment that chopper lands on the roof, I vanish into international waters with full diplomatic immunity. All I need is the boy.”
“He’s not a commodity!” Claire screamed. “He is your son!”
“He was never my son!” Jonathan spat, his venom spilling over the polished floor. “He was an insurance policy! When your father died, he left seventy percent of Vale Enterprises tied in an untouchable trust for his biological line. You were married to me, but I was just an executor! If you died childless, the entire fortune defaulted to charity. I needed an heir. But you couldn’t conceive, could you?”
Claire stared at him, cold nausea rushing into her throat. “What are you saying?”
“You thought you fell pregnant naturally?” Jonathan smirked, savoring the horror on her face. “Dr. Keller and I orchestrated your entire in-vitro procedure while you were under for your knee surgery. We used an anonymous donor egg from your mother’s preserved lineage and your father’s elite genetic catalog. Ethan is Richard’s pure biological descendant—the only child on earth carrying the rare Rh-null antibody sequence that cures degenerative cellular decay. He was worth nothing to me living in this house as a spoiled brat. But in a lab? His bone marrow was liquid gold!”
“You sick, pathetic coward,” Richard growled, taking a slow step toward him.
Jonathan swung the revolver from Richard to Claire. “One more step, old man, and she dies first.”
Ethan suddenly bolted from behind the crib. “Don’t hurt my mommy!”
The boy slammed into Jonathan’s knees with all his tiny weight. Caught off balance, Jonathan cursed, his shot firing wide into the ceiling. Plaster exploded in a cloud of white dust. Richard lunged forward, throwing his entire weight into Jonathan’s chest. The two men slammed against the doorframe, tumbling out into the smoke-filled hallway.
“Ethan, stay here!” Claire ordered, her mother’s instincts taking over completely. She grabbed a heavy bronze table lamp from the nightstand, ripped the cord from the wall, and charged into the corridor.
Richard was on his back, Jonathan’s boot pressed firmly against his throat. Jonathan was raising the gun to execute him.
Claire didn’t hesitate. With a feral scream, she swung the heavy bronze lamp with everything she had, smashing it across Jonathan’s face.
Bone cracked. Jonathan shrieked, stumbling sideways, blood pouring from his shattered nose. The gun flew from his grip, skittering across the floorboards and falling down the grand stairwell into the blazing flames below.
“You bitch!” Jonathan roared, lunging at Claire with his good hand, his fingers clawing at her neck.
They fell against the bannister. The heat from below was suffocating, thick black smoke blinding them both. Jonathan’s thumbs dug into Claire’s windpipe, his face contorted into a mask of pure demonic hatred. “I should have drowned you with him seven years ago!”
Claire’s vision began to tunnel. Black spots danced before her eyes. She clawed at his wrists, her lungs burning for air.
Then, a sudden, piercing siren ripped through the air.
The heavy whirr of a helicopter’s rotor blades swept over the estate roof. A SWAT concussion grenade crashed through the hallway skylight, exploding in a blinding flash of white light and thunderous percussion. The shockwave threw Jonathan backward, his head slamming violently against the marble molding. He lay groggy, blood pooling behind his skull, momentarily paralyzed by the blast.
Richard scrambled to his feet, hauling Claire up by her arms. “Claire! Get the boy! We have to get out now!”
Claire stumbled back into the nursery, scooping Ethan into her arms. The boy wrapped his legs tightly around her waist, burying his wet face in her neck. “Mommy, I’m scared.”
“I’ve got you, my love,” Claire sobbed, pressing her lips against his bruised temple. “Mommy’s never letting go. Never again.”
They ran down the rear service stairs, bursting out into the cool evening air of the private courtyard just as three tactical federal agents in black body armor surrounded them with assault rifles raised.
“Federal agents! Hands where we can see them!”
Richard held up his hands, pulling an encrypted badge from his coat pocket. “I am Richard Vale, former director of Vale Pharmaceuticals. The suspect, Jonathan Mercer, is incapacitated on the third-floor landing of the east wing. But you need to deploy air support immediately!”
The lead agent lowered his rifle, glancing at the badge and then at Richard’s face in absolute shock. “Director Vale? You’re dead, sir.”
“I’m very much alive, Agent Carter,” Richard said coldly. “And my daughter’s nurse is currently being executed at an off-grid black site at Blackwood Ridge. We have eight minutes before Dr. Keller burns that facility to the ground. Get a helicopter in the air right now!”
Agent Carter barked orders into his radio. A massive twin-engine federal transport helicopter touched down on the front lawn, blowing debris across the lawn.
Claire held Ethan tightly, refusing to hand him over to the paramedics who rushed forward with blankets. “I’m going with you,” she told her father, her eyes burning with an unyielding, predatory rage. “I’m going to watch that monster burn.”
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Ethan looked up at the darkening sky, his voice barely a whisper. “Elena is in the basement. She hid the red notebook under the floor. She told me... she told me that if she died, I had to tell you about the medicine.”
Claire strapped the boy into the helicopter seat, wrapping her arms around him as the aircraft lifted into the night sky, banking hard toward the dark, jagged peaks of Blackwood Ridge.
