Chapter 4 - BLOOD TIES
The procedure began at midnight. The storm outside raged on, matching the violent tension inside the estate. Thunder shook the floorboards as Yates calibrated the complex array of tubes and monitors connecting Clara to my sleeping children. Jonah and Blythe lay on either side of her, heavily sedated, completely unaware that their salvation was flowing through the clear plastic lines suspended above them.
Clara was not sedated.
I stood by the foot of the beds, unable to look away. When Yates inserted the thick trocar needle directly into Clara’s iliac crest—her hip bone—to extract the marrow, she let out a strangled, breathless scream. Her back arched off the mattress, her knuckles turning bone-white as she gripped the steel rails of the bed.
"Stop," I growled instinctively, taking a step forward.
"No!" Clara gasped, tears streaming down her face, her teeth gritted so hard I thought they might shatter. "Don't stop. Keep going."
Yates looked terrified, his hands trembling slightly, but he kept drawing the rich, dark marrow, feeding it into the centrifuge that separated and purified the stem cells before they were pumped into Jonah and Blythe's tiny veins.
For three hours, it was a waking nightmare. Every fifteen minutes, Clara had to endure another extraction. The sheer physical toll on her malnourished body was catastrophic. Her skin turned the color of ash, and her lips cracked, bleeding slightly. Yet, she never asked Yates to stop. Every time she caught her breath, she turned her head to look at Blythe, then at Jonah, whispering words I couldn't hear.
I found myself walking to her side. I didn't know how to comfort people. I knew how to break bones, how to extort, how to command. But looking at this woman—this absolute stranger who was being tortured to save my flesh and blood—I felt completely powerless.
I reached out and placed my large, calloused hand over hers. She gripped my fingers with shocking strength, anchoring herself to me as another wave of pain hit.
"You're doing incredible," I murmured, leaning down so only she could hear. "Just hold on. Just a little longer."
"They're beautiful," she whispered back, her voice slurring slightly from the shock. "They look like her."
"They have her eyes," I agreed, my throat tight.
By 4:00 AM, the final transfer was complete. Yates hastily bandaged Clara's wounds as she slipped into unconsciousness, her body finally giving out to the trauma. I ordered two of my most trusted guards to carry her to the master guest suite down the hall.
"Yates. Tell me," I demanded, watching the monitors hooked up to the twins.
"We won't know for twenty-four hours," Yates said, wiping his hands on a towel. "But the integration was successful. If her cells do what they did in the Vanguard labs... we might just witness a miracle."
I sat in the armchair between my children's beds, watching their chests rise and fall. For the first time in months, their breathing didn't sound labored. The faint, sickly yellow pallor of their skin seemed to be fading, replaced by a subtle, healthy flush.
I pulled my phone out. A message from Marco: The port is ashes. Vane lost millions. But we intercepted chatter. He knows about the kids. He knows why the doctor is here.
May you like
My blood ran cold. The secrecy was broken. Vane knew my children were dying. And worse, he would soon know they were being cured. A grieving Lawson Mercer was dangerous, but a Lawson Mercer with his children restored would be an unstoppable force that would wipe Vane off the map. Vane wouldn't wait. He would strike with everything he had.
I holstered my weapon. The ten days of waiting for death were over. The war had officially begun.
