Chapter 5 - The Shadow of Marcus Whitmore
"My Dead Father-in-Law Walked Through the Smoke"I clutched our baby boy tightly against my chest, creeping down the dark, smoke-filled staircase of the hospital. Every step was agony; my post-partum body felt like it was tearing apart at the seams, but adrenaline drove me forward.
Behind me, the sound of gunfire echoed through the stairwell, followed by a heavy explosion that shook the concrete walls.
"Adrian!" I sobbed beneath my breath, refusing to look back.
I reached the subterranean parking garage. The air was cold and smelled of gasoline. Emergency sirens blared in the distance, but the basement was eerily quiet.
"Over here, Miss Carter!"
A voice called out from behind a parked black van. I whipped around, pulling the baby closer. Stepping into the dim light was Henderson—Adrian's loyal, middle-aged family lawyer.
"Henderson!" I breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank God. Help me, Adrian is up on the 4th floor—"
"I know where Adrian is, Lena," Henderson said softly. His voice lacked its usual nervous warmth. In fact, it was totally devoid of emotion.
He lifted a silenced pistol, aiming it directly at my forehead.
I froze. "Henderson... what are you doing?"
"Cleaning up a thirty-year-old mess," Henderson said coldly. "You were never supposed to marry Adrian. You were supposed to stay an orphan in upstate New York, living off that small trust fund."
"The letter..." I gasped, realization hitting me like a freight train. "You put that letter in Adrian's safe!"
"Of course I did," Henderson sneered. "I needed you to run. If you stayed, Adrian would have eventually looked into your family’s old company, Carter BioTech. He would have discovered that his father didn't kill your parents..."
"Then who did?" I begged, tears slipping down my face.
"I did," a heavy, raspy voice spoke from the shadows behind Henderson.
A man stepped forward out of the dark. He walked with a heavy silver cane, his face half-covered in severe burn scars.
My heart plunged into a pit of black horror.
It was Marcus Whitmore. Adrian’s father. The man who was supposed to have died in a plane crash twelve years ago.
"You're... you're alive," I whispered, completely paralyzed.
"Alive enough to finish what I started," Marcus rasped, his cold blue eyes—the exact same eyes as Adrian's—staring at my baby. "Your father invented a gene-editing patent thirty years ago, Lena. A patent worth fifty billion dollars today. I took his life, took his tech, and built Whitmore Holdings on his grave."
"And Adrian?" I choked out. "Does Adrian know?"
"Adrian was a weak fool who fell in love with the daughter of my worst enemy," Marcus spat. "He spent eight months crying over your loss instead of expanding the empire. And now, you bring an infant into the mix to divide the estate?"
Marcus nodded to Henderson. "Kill the girl. Bring me the child. We'll raise him properly under my supervision."
Henderson clicked the safety off his gun. "Goodbye, Lena."
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BOOM!
A heavy SUV crashed through the concrete garage barrier at eighty miles an hour, slamming directly into Henderson and pinning him against the concrete pillar!
