Chapter 5 - What Julian Had Been Selling
The investigation changed after that.
It was no longer only about altered medical records.
It became about a hidden reproductive program.
Blackwood Biomedical had been collecting genetic material from wealthy families, physicians, donors, and patients for years.
Some samples were obtained legally.
Others were not.
Embryos had been mislabeled.
Transfers had been manipulated.
Pregnancy outcomes had been recorded falsely.
In certain cases, children believed to have died might have been born elsewhere.
Emily read the files until she became physically sick.
"What was the purpose?"
Ross's voice crackled through the secure line.
"We're still determining that."
Garrison already knew.
"Inheritance."
Emily looked at him.
"You said that before."
"Conrad believed genetics could be turned into currency."
"Children aren't currency."
"To him, bloodlines are."
The scheme had another layer.
Julian had not created it.
He had joined it.
During his fellowship, he discovered unusual records and confronted Conrad.
Instead of reporting them, Julian negotiated.
Access to patient data.
Stock positions.
Clinic ownership.
Research funding.
In exchange, Julian quietly identified patients whose fertility histories made manipulation difficult to detect.
Emily's name appeared after she married him.
That knowledge changed something inside her.
Julian had not merely betrayed their marriage when he met Chloe.
He had commodified it years earlier.
Her miscarriages had not been random tragedies.
They had been events inside someone else's plan.
"Why me?" Emily asked.
Ross answered carefully.
"We found a note attached to your file."
"What note?"
"Maternal lineage valuable."
Emily laughed without humor.
"I'm a school librarian."
"Your mother was adopted."
Emily stopped.
"Yes."
"Do you know who her biological parents were?"
"No."
Garrison turned toward her.
"Emily."
She already knew from his face.
"What?"
"Your maternal grandmother was Evelyn Blackwood."
Emily stared.
Garrison's mother had a sister.
Evelyn.
She disappeared from the family after marrying against their father's wishes.
Her daughter was placed for adoption.
That daughter became Emily's mother.
Garrison looked stunned.
"We're related."
Emily swallowed.
"How?"
"My mother's sister was your great-grandmother."
"So you're some distant cousin."
"Yes."
Emily sank into her chair.
Suddenly the notation made sense.
Maternal lineage valuable.
Conrad had been experimenting within his own extended family.
Garrison paced.
"He knew."
"Knew what?"
"Who you were before Julian married you."
Emily looked toward the screen.
"Julian married me because of this?"
"We can't prove that."
She closed the laptop.
"I don't need proof to know."
Yet a worse discovery came soon afterward.
Chloe was pregnant.
Julian announced it publicly at a hospital fundraiser.
Photographs showed him kissing her beneath a banner advertising advances in reproductive medicine.
Emily watched the video alone.
She expected jealousy.
Instead, she felt pity.
Not for Julian.
For the unborn child.
Garrison entered the room.
"You saw."
"Yes."
"Ross says the pregnancy occurred through the Carter clinic."
Emily looked up.
"Meaning?"
"The embryo is not genetically Chloe's."
She stared at him.
"Does Chloe know?"
"Probably not."
"Julian?"
"Almost certainly."
Emily stood.
"We have to tell her."
Garrison was surprised.
"After what she's done?"
"The baby didn't do anything."
That was the moment Garrison understood what separated Emily from the people they were fighting.
She had every reason to become cruel.
She chose not to.
They arranged an anonymous warning.
Chloe ignored it.
Three days later she posted a photograph of the warning online, laughing about a jealous stalker.
Julian smiled beside her.
But Garrison noticed something in the image.
A bracelet around Julian's wrist.
A black cord.
A small silver symbol.
Two intersecting circles.
Garrison enlarged the image.
His face went white.
Emily noticed.
"You know it."
"Yes."
"What is it?"
Garrison whispered, "My father's company used that symbol before Blackwood Biomedical existed."
"And?"
"He shut that division down after a laboratory fire."
"Why?"
"Because twelve people died."
Emily looked at the symbol.
"When?"
"Thirty-one years ago."
"Who caused the fire?"
Garrison's eyes remained on Julian.
"My brother said it was an accident."
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"And you believed him?"
"For thirty-one years."
