Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN WITH NO PAST
The heavy mahogany doors of my office swung open, and Prescott stepped aside. The woman who walked in didn't look like a savior. She looked like a ghost.
She was drenched from the Chicago rain, her dark hair plastered against a pale, hollowed face. Her clothes were threadbare, hanging off a frame that looked as though it hadn't seen a proper meal in weeks. Yet, despite her fragile appearance, there was a startling defiance in her storm-gray eyes. She didn't tremble. She didn't avert her gaze. In my world, men twice her size broke into cold sweats just breathing the air in this room. She simply stared at me, evaluating the monster she had willingly walked in to meet.
"Prescott says you didn't come for a job," I said, my voice dangerously low. I remained standing behind my desk, letting the sheer intimidation of the room do the work. "He also says you know things about my children that no one outside this house is permitted to know. You have exactly one minute to explain how you got this information before I have you taken down to the soundproof rooms in the basement."
She didn't flinch. "My name is Clara," she said. Her voice was raspy, raw, as if she hadn't spoken in days. "And I know about Jonah and Blythe because I know about Genevieve. I know what she did before she died."
The temperature in the room plummeted. I crossed the distance between us in three strides, grabbing her by the shoulders and slamming her hard against the oak-paneled wall. Prescott stepped forward, hand hovering over his holster, but I waved him off without looking back.
"Never say my wife's name," I snarled, my face inches from hers. "You have thirty seconds left."
Clara winced, but her eyes locked onto mine with a burning intensity. "Genevieve was sick before she died, Lawson. Not just the car accident. She had the same genetic marker the twins have. She underwent an experimental trial at Vanguard Therapeutics. A highly illegal, off-the-books genetic sequencing trial."
My grip tightened. Vanguard Therapeutics had been a front, a pharmaceutical company I had dismantled and burned to the ground a year after Genevieve's death when I found out they had been using my money for illicit human testing. "Vanguard is gone. Everyone involved is dead."
"Not everyone," Clara breathed, her fingers lightly touching my wrists, not to push me away, but to steady herself. "I was in the neighboring cell. I was Patient 4. Genevieve was Patient 7. They used my bone marrow to synthesize the serum they gave her. It didn't cure her in time, but my body... my blood... it adapted to the genetic corruption."
I let go of her, stepping back as if burned. The room spun for a fraction of a second. "You're lying. The doctors told me the twins' condition was a rare leukemia. A tragedy. An act of God."
"It wasn't an act of God, Lawson. It was a recessive genetic time bomb passed down from the Vanguard experiments. Your doctors don't know because the markers don't show up on standard oncology panels. But I know. I've spent the last two years tracking you down, running from Vanguard's remaining clean-up crews. I have the antibodies in my blood. I can save your children."
I stared at her, my mind warring between the ruthless logic that had kept me alive in the underworld and the desperate, bleeding hope of a father watching his children fade away.
"Prescott," I barked, not taking my eyes off Clara. "Get Dr. Yates in here right now. Tell him to prep the isolation lab for a full-spectrum genetic and marrow draw."
"Boss," Prescott hesitated. "Crosby Vane's men are pushing the perimeter. We have perimeter alarms tripping on the south fence."
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"Let them trip," I roared, the glass of the windows vibrating with the force of my voice. "Double the guard on the kids' wing. Shoot anyone who breaches the grass on sight. But right now, nothing matters more than this." I turned back to Clara. "If you are lying to me, Clara... if you give me hope and it turns out to be a lie, dying will be the easiest thing you do in this house."
"I'm not lying," she said softly, wiping a drop of rainwater from her cheek. "I have nothing left to lose. But you do."
