Chapter 3 - The Lab in the Woods
The drive back to the Drummond estate was conducted in an oppressive, suffocating silence. Richard sat in the front passenger seat of my armored SUV, his eyes fixed on his tablet, his fingers flying across the screen as he directed a small army of public relations fixers and legal clean-up crews. I sat in the back, sandwiched between two large security personnel, with Sophia sitting on my lap. She clung to me like a shadow, her tiny hands never releasing their grip on my coat. The baby, whom we had left under the temporary watch of my terrified but fiercely loyal housekeeper, Mrs. Higgins, was our next destination. Or so I thought.
The SUV didn't turn toward the main highway leading to my mansion. Instead, the driver took a sharp left, heading down an unlit, gravel road that cut through the dense, private forest bordering the northern edge of the county.
"Richard," I said, my voice dangerously calm. "This isn't the way to the estate."
"A slight detour, Edward," Richard replied without looking back. "Isabella is waiting for us. She’s... let's say, highly invested in the resolution of this matter. We need to verify the biological baseline of both children before we finalize the legal non-disclosure agreements."
"Verify?" I scoffed. "Isabella already confessed to me in the store. She admitted she used my genetic material without my consent."
Richard finally turned around, a chilling, pitying look in his eyes. "Isabella only knows a fraction of the truth, Edward. She thinks she was running a rogue medical experiment to spite you after the breakup. She has no idea she was funded by a shell company owned directly by your family's own board of directors. She was the tool. You were the source. And these children... they are the property of the Drummond Trust."
"They are human beings! They are my children!" I roared, leaning forward, only to have the heavy hands of the guards on either side of me slam me back into the leather seat.
"They are assets, Edward. And you are a temporary custodian," Richard said softly as the vehicle came to a halt.
We had stopped in front of a low-slung, ultra-modern building constructed of black glass and reinforced concrete, hidden deep within the trees. It bore no signs, no logos, no markings of any kind. It looked like a bunker disguised as a high-tech corporate retreat.
The guards forced us out of the car. The night air was freezing, biting through my shirt, but the anger inside me kept me burning hot. I held Sophia tightly against my chest, shielding her from the wind as they marched us through the heavy sliding doors of the facility.
Inside, the building was a stark, blinding white. The floors were polished epoxy, reflecting the bright LED panels overhead. Waiting for us in the central atrium was Isabella. She had traded her stylish civilian clothes for a sterile white lab coat. Her face was frantic, her eyes wide with a mixture of terror and manic scientific obsession.
"Edward!" she cried, taking a step toward me, but stopping when she saw the security detail. "Thank God you're here. Richard, you promised me he wouldn't be harmed! You promised me we were just going to secure the samples!"
"Isabella," I said, my voice cutting through her panic. "Look at me. Look at what you did. You told me I was sterile. You let me live twelve years in isolation, believing I could never have a family, while you were building a laboratory in the woods to breed my replacements?"
"It wasn't like that!" she sobbed, pressing her hands against her face. "The board... they approached me after we broke up. They showed me the medical records. You weren't sterile, Edward. Your DNA was incredibly rare, possessing a unique genetic resistance to cellular degradation—the kind of genetic blueprint that could revolutionize anti-aging and regenerative medicine. But they said you would never cooperate. They said your ego would get in the way. They offered me unlimited funding. I... I thought I was creating a miracle."
"You created a prison," Sophia spoke up suddenly, her small voice echoing off the white walls.
Isabella gasped, her eyes dropping to the little girl in my arms. "Sophia... oh god, you brought her here? Richard, you said she was taken care of!"
"She is being taken care of," Richard said smoothly, nodding to the guards. "Take the girl to Exam Room Three. Extract the standard marrow and blood panels. We need to ensure the baseline hasn't been corrupted by her years on the street."
"No!" I shouted, kicking out at the first guard who approached. My boot caught him squarely in the kneecap, sending him crashing to the floor with a groan of agony. But before I could move again, the second guard drew a heavy, matte-black taser and pressed it directly into my ribs.
A massive surge of electrical current ripped through my body. Every muscle in my torso seized violently. My vision exploded into a blinding web of white static, and my knees buckled beneath me. I fell to the polished floor, gasping for air, my limbs completely unresponsive as the residual current pulsed through my nervous system.
"Father!" Sophia screamed. It was the first time she had dropped her calm, stoic facade. She fought like a wild animal, scratching and biting at the guard who scooped her up, but she was too small.
"Edward! Stop this!" Isabella shrieked, backing away as Richard calmly watched the scene unfold.
"Take the child," Richard ordered. "And put Edward in the holding office. He needs a few minutes to remember who he actually works for."
Through the haze of pain and the ringing in my ears, I watched them drag my daughter down a long, white corridor. Her small hands beat against the guard's back until the heavy steel door of Exam Room Three slammed shut, cutting off her cries.
I was dragged roughly across the floor and thrown into a small, windowless office. The heavy security door clicked shut, the electronic lock engaging with a sound that felt like a coffin lid closing.
I lay on the cold floor for a long minute, waiting for my muscles to stop twitching. The anger inside me had transcended mere rage; it had become something cold, sharp, and lethal. They had taken my youth, they had taken my peace, and now they were trying to harvest my children like laboratory livestock.
I pulled myself up, using the edge of a heavy mahogany desk for support. I looked around the room. It was an executive office, likely used by Richard or the facility director during audits. On the desk sat a high-end corporate computer terminal.
They thought I was just a businessman who had grown soft sitting in high-backed chairs. They forgot how I bought my way to the top. I hadn't built Drummond Enterprises by being a passive victim; I had built it by outsmarting every predator in the market.
I sat in the chair and hit the spacebar on the keyboard. The screen lit up, requesting a secure biometric login.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out my personal phone. It was an encrypted, custom-built device with direct satellite access to the Drummond mainframes. I connected the phone to the terminal via a hidden port beneath the desk riser.
"Let's see what you're really hiding, Richard," I muttered, my fingers flying across my phone's screen, deploying a proprietary decryption algorithm my tech teams had developed for corporate espionage defense.
The progress bar on my phone flickered, then turned green. The terminal screen bypassed the security protocols, opening a massive, hidden directory labeled: PROJECT RESURGENCE.
I scrolled through the files, my eyes widening with horror as the full scope of the conspiracy unfolded before me.
It wasn't just about an inheritance. It wasn't just about anti-aging medicine.
The Drummond Trust wasn't a financial entity; it was a generational cult of corporate oligarchs. The board members—men and women whose families had controlled global banking for a century—were aging. They didn't want my money. They wanted my biological blueprints to create viable clones and organ-harvesting vessels to extend their own lives.
Sophia wasn't just an heir. She was the first successful prototype. And the baby in the blue blanket? He wasn't born to inherit my wealth. He was born to be the biological repository for the current Chairman of the Board—a man who was currently ninety-four years old and dying of heart failure.
And the note left in the blanket? He is yours. They lied to you. Trust no one carrying your family name.
I scrolled further down the file to find the sender of that note. It hadn't been written by Martha. It had been leaked from inside the facility by a disgruntled researcher who had been killed three days ago in a staged car accident.
Suddenly, a loud, piercing alarm began to echo through the facility. The lights in the office shifted from brilliant white to a flashing, emergency crimson.
A voice boomed over the intercom system: “Security breach. Containment failure in Sector 4. All personnel evacuate immediately.”
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I sprang to my feet, disconnecting my phone. Through the small glass window of the office door, I saw smoke beginning to billow down the white corridor.
Someone had just set the facility on fire.
