Chapter 6 - THE CREATOR’S SINThe world froze once again.
“What are you doing?!” I screamed, throwing myself between Agent Gable and my father. “He saved us! He just saved Kevin’s life! Why are you arresting him?!”
Agent Gable looked at me with deep sympathy in her eyes, but her hands remained steady. “Maya… your father didn’t just invent Project Aegis. He didn’t encode the data into Kevin to protect it from Eric.”
She looked at David, whose head was bowed, his shoulders shaking with silent, heavy sobs.
“David Lin wasn’t the victim of the lab explosion six years ago,” Agent Gable revealed softly. “He caused it. He set the charge himself to fake his death so he could sell the Aegis protocol on the black market independently. When Eric found out, Eric blackmailed David. David offered up his own unborn grandson’s DNA as the ultimate biological vault to keep Eric from turning him in to the government.”
I felt as if the air had been violently sucked from my lungs. I stumbled backward, almost dropping Kevin.
My mother stared at David, her hands shaking uncontrollably under the bright yellow shock blanket. “David… tell me she’s lying. Tell me you didn’t do that to our daughter… to our grandchild…”
David fell to his knees on the cold pavement. He looked up at me, tears streaming down his scarred cheeks, his voice cracking into shards of grief.
“Maya… I was desperate,” David wept. “The offshore buyers… they threatened to execute our entire family if I didn’t deliver the source code. I designed the biometric key so it could only be unlocked when Kevin turned eighteen! I never intended for Eric to trigger it early! I never intended for him to hurt him!”
“You turned my son into a walking target!” I screamed, tears overflowing my eyes, hot and furious. “You used my baby as a safe-deposit box for a military weapon! You’re no better than Eric! You’re worse—because you’re his grandfather!”
“Maya, please—” David reached out a hand, but two FBI agents pulled him back, wrapping his wrists in iron cuffs.
“David Lin, you have the right to remain silent,” the agent read his rights as they led him away toward a separate transport car.
My father didn't fight them. He let them drag him away, his head hanging low, sobbing into the cold night air.
My mother sat down heavily on the bumper of the ambulance, staring into the dark distance. Her husband was going to prison forever. Her ex-husband was going to prison forever. Everything she had believed about her life for the last twenty years was a complete, calculated lie.
Leo sat beside her, wrapping his arm around her shoulders, both of them broken, silent, and empty.
Agent Gable walked over to me, handing me a small bottle of water and a warm blanket for Kevin.
“The medical team needs to check Kevin at the federal medical facility,” Gable said gently. “We have specialists who can safely neutralize the non-invasive genetic marker in his blood. He will be completely normal, Maya. Safe, free, and healthy.”
“And the prenuptial agreement?” I asked, my voice dry and cracked. “The house? My mother’s life?”
“Eric’s assets are being seized by the federal government under the RICO act,” Gable replied. “However, because Elena was an unwitting victim and assisted in the federal investigation, the Department of Justice has authorized a full victim restitution fund. She will receive the house, full financial independence, and immunity from all charges.”
It felt like the ending of a horrific nightmare. We were safe. The bad men were locked away. The weapon was destroyed.
Or so we thought.
HOOK / CLIFFHANGER:
Three hours later, at the secure federal medical facility, I sat by Kevin’s bedside as a doctor completed the final blood panel scan.
The doctor looked at the monitor screen, frowned, and tapped the glass.
“Ms. Lin… did your father ever mention a twin?”
May you like
I blinked. “A twin? No. Kevin is an only child.”
The doctor turned the screen toward me. “Then why does this genetic signature show that the encryption key wasn't activated by Kevin… but by an exact biological match somewhere else in this building?”
