Chapter 11 - Beneath Saint Catherine’s
Saint Catherine’s Hospital had closed eighteen years earlier.
Its main tower had been demolished and replaced with luxury apartments, but the oldest research wing remained beneath an abandoned church two blocks away.
At two in the morning, Dominic’s convoy stopped in a narrow street behind the church.
Rain struck the windshield.
Grace stared through the glass at the boarded windows and rusted iron gate.
The scene felt too familiar.
“Stay in the vehicle,” Dominic said.
“No.”
“This is not a negotiation.”
“Then stop treating it like one.”
Lucas hid a smile.
Dominic looked at him.
“Something amusing?”
“No.”
Vale had given them an access code and a map of the underground wing. He claimed he would remain at the hotel with Margaret as an assurance of cooperation.
Grace did not trust him.
Dominic did not either.
But Victoria had entered the old hospital forty minutes earlier. Traffic cameras showed her vehicle near the church.
They had no time to argue.
Lucas cut the chain on the gate.
The church smelled of mold and wet wood. Broken pews lay beneath a collapsed section of ceiling. At the altar, a stone panel had been removed, revealing stairs leading underground.
Grace switched on her flashlight.
Dominic placed a hand in front of her.
“Behind me.”
“You are not my employer down here.”
“I may be your brother.”
“You are doing a terrible job so far.”
For the first time, Dominic almost smiled.
Then a sound echoed below.
Metal striking metal.
They descended.
The research wing had been sealed in darkness for years. Dust covered abandoned desks. Medical charts remained scattered across the floor. Old warning signs identified sterilization rooms and neonatal laboratories.
Lucas checked the map.
“The archive is through the west corridor.”
They found the first body near a security station.
A man in a dark suit lay against the wall.
Dominic checked his pulse.
“Dead.”
Grace recognized him as one of the men who had accompanied Vale to the penthouse.
“Vale sent someone ahead.”
Lucas examined the wound.
“Knife. Recent.”
They continued.
A power generator hummed somewhere beneath them.
Emergency lights flickered on.
A woman’s voice came through the ceiling speakers.
“Grace.”
Victoria.
Grace stopped.
“I wondered whether you would bring Dominic.”
Dominic looked for the nearest camera.
“Where are you?”
“Closer than you think.”
The speakers crackled.
“Did Conrad tell you about the marker?”
“Yes.”
“Did he tell you what it does?”
“He said it proves identity.”
Victoria laughed.
“It proves ownership.”
A steel door closed behind them.
Lucas tested it.
Locked.
Victoria continued.
“Anthony DeLuca was not interested in identifying his child. He wanted to create one.”
Grace moved toward the speaker.
“What does that mean?”
“The experimental treatment was designed to alter the immune system permanently. Sebastian used material from all three infants.”
Dominic stared upward.
“You’re saying the surviving children were biologically altered?”
“I’m saying ordinary parentage tests will never give you a clean answer.”
Grace remembered Dominic ordering three DNA tests.
“They could all produce different results.”
“Exactly.”
A light came on at the far end of the corridor.
Victoria stood behind a glass wall in the archive laboratory.
Rows of old recording machines surrounded her.
A large computer terminal glowed nearby.
In her hand, she held the original Elena camera device.
Grace touched her shoe.
The device she carried was still there.
Then she realized the truth.
Victoria held another unit.
Elena had used more than one camera.
Dominic approached the glass.
“Open the door.”
Victoria shook her head.
“First, answer a question.”
“What?”
“If you learn that you have no DeLuca blood, will you surrender the company?”
Dominic did not hesitate.
“If the trust legally belongs to someone else, yes.”
Victoria’s face tightened.
“You say that because you assume Grace is the alternative.”
Grace looked at her.
“Am I?”
“No.”
Victoria touched the terminal.
A video appeared on the glass monitor.
The footage showed a hospital treatment room.
The date was thirty-five years earlier.
Three bassinets stood beneath bright surgical lights.
A younger Sebastian Vale moved between them.
Anthony DeLuca stood near the door.
Elena lay unconscious on a hospital bed in the adjacent room, visible through a glass partition. She appeared impossibly young.
Grace stepped closer.
Her mother could not have been more than seventeen.
Sebastian lifted one infant.
Anthony asked, “Which child is compatible?”
Sebastian answered, “All three, after the procedure.”
“That was not the agreement.”
“The agreement changed when your son died.”
Anthony looked toward the bassinets.
“Then give Margaret the Miller boy.”
Sebastian smiled.
“You still think you know which one that is?”
The recording distorted.
When the image returned, a nurse entered carrying identification bands.
Grace leaned forward.
The nurse turned toward the camera.
Margaret DeLuca.
Young, terrified, and walking without assistance.
Dominic whispered, “Mother?”
In the video, Margaret took one identification band and placed it around a child’s ankle.
She looked directly toward the hidden camera.
Then she said, “Elena must never know which baby survived.”
The footage ended.
Grace stared at the blank screen.
May you like
Victoria watched her reaction.
“You have been protecting the wrong woman.”
