CHAP 5
CHAPTER 5 — The Missing Files
The funeral lasted only twenty minutes.
No family.
No speeches.
Only detectives watching everyone who came.
Sarah pulled me aside afterward.
"He was trying to talk."
"What do you mean?"
She handed me a flash drive recovered from his apartment.
"He left your name."
My hands trembled.
We plugged it into her laptop.
Only one video existed.
The doctor appeared exhausted, glancing constantly toward the door.
"If you're watching this..." he said.
"...I'm probably already dead."
He swallowed hard.
"I didn't start this."
"I inherited it."
He held up an old patient ledger.
"The original program began in 2007."
My heart pounded.
"Powerful families unable to produce heirs."
"Wealthy bloodlines."
"Private hospitals."
"They paid women to carry pregnancies."
"But when contracts became inconvenient..."
He looked directly into the camera.
"...they forged them."
Another page appeared.
Hundreds of coded entries.
Some names blacked out.
Others highlighted.
One line wasn't.
Case 47 — Mother Refused Transfer.
Below it...
My name.
But something else caught Sarah's eye.
Another case.
Case 12.
The surname.
Emily.
I felt the room tilt.
"No..."
Sarah zoomed in.
Case 12.
Female infant.
Transferred after birth.
Original mother—
Unknown.
Emily...
wasn't Linda's granddaughter.
She wasn't related to Linda at all.
She had been stolen.
At that exact moment, every light inside Sarah's office went dark.
Power outage.
Or so we thought.
Outside, tires screeched.
An explosion shattered every front window.
Glass rained across the room.
Masked men rushed inside.
"Get the drive!"
Sarah shoved me toward the emergency exit.
"Run!"
I grabbed my son with one arm—
May you like
Emily with the other—
And fled into the darkness as gunshots echoed behind us.
