Chapter 14 - The Bloodline Secrets
"Wait!" Sarah shouted into the phone, stepping over James. "Victoria, you know as well as I do that Hope’s DNA sequence is incomplete without the maternal trigger code!"
A short pause on the line. Victoria’s amused voice returned. "Ah, the runaway surrogate speaks. You always were clever, Sarah."
"I encrypted the bloodline sequence before I transferred the embryo," Sarah lied boldly, her voice unwavering. "If you take Hope by force without the decryption key stored in my personal server, her cellular tissue will be useless to your laboratories within twenty-four hours."
"What do you want?" Victoria demanded, her tone sharpening.
"A face-to-face meeting," Sarah replied. "Just you, Eleanor, and me. At the old harbor dry dock where Marcus kept his shipping ledgers. If your men step foot inside this house before then, I hit 'delete' on the master decryption code, and your multi-billion-dollar medical research vanishes forever."
Silence heavy as iron hung on the line.
"You have two hours," Victoria finally said, and the call disconnected.
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I turned to Sarah, my mind reeling. "Is that true? Did you really encrypt her DNA?"
Sarah looked at me with deep sorrow in her eyes. "No, Eleanor. I lied. But it’s the only leverage we have left to end this nightmare permanently."
