Chapter 4 - The Bloodline Ledger
Within forty-five minutes, the penthouse doors slid open to admit Dr.
Julian Mercer, the chief geneticist at Chicago University Hospital and a man whose absolute discretion Gideon had bought years ago.
Mercer carried a heavy, temperature-controlled metallic case, his hands trembling as he took in the armed syndicate soldiers stationed at every entrance.
Behind him, two enforcers hauled a terrified, sweating man into the foyer.
Dr.
Harrison Vance, once the pristine, arrogant head of obstetrics at St.
Jude Memorial, looked completely undone.
His silk pajamas were torn at the collar, his glasses hung askew from one ear, and a bloody bruise was already blooming on his left cheekbone.
When Vance’s eyes landed on Mallerie sitting on the sofa with Owen asleep in her lap, all the color drained from his face.
“M-Mallerie?” Vance stammered, his knees buckling until the guards shoved him roughly onto his knees on the hardwood floor.
“Hello, Doctor,” Mallerie said, her voice dripping with ice.
“You told me my son died of respiratory failure ten months ago.
You told me his lungs were too weak to survive.”
Vance swallowed hard, glancing toward Gideon with naked terror.
“Mr.
Vale, this is an outrage!
You cannot abduct a prominent physician from his home!
I have legal protections—!”
Gideon moved across the floor with the silent, terrifying grace of a panther.
He stood over the kneeling doctor, his polished dress shoes inches from Vance’s trembling hands.
“You have exactly two minutes to explain why this woman carries the matching birthmark of the child in her arms,” Gideon whispered, the softness of his voice far more terrifying than a shout.
“And if you utter a single lie, Vance, you will leave this high-rise through the exterior window.”
Vance began to hyperventilate, clutching his chest.
“It was an emergency...
there was total chaos during your wife’s delivery, Mr.
Vale!
Mrs.
Vale’s heart stopped!
The machines were failing!”
“We are past the excuses, Harrison,” Gideon interrupted, his gray eyes devoid of mercy.
“Did my biological child survive that night?”
Vance shut his eyes tightly, tears of terror leaking down his wrinkled cheeks.
“No,” Vance whispered, the single word falling like an executioner’s axe into the dead silence of the room.
Mallerie clutched Owen tighter, a sharp sob catching in her throat.
Gideon did not flinch, but his hands slowly curled into fists at his sides.
“Repeat that,” Gideon commanded.
“Helena’s baby...
the Vale infant...
was stillborn,” Vance wept, his voice shaking with absolute ruin.
“The cord was wrapped three times around his neck.
By the time we performed the emergency section, there was no fetal heart tone.
We worked on him for twenty minutes, but he was gone before Helena’s heart gave out.”
“Then why did you bring me Owen?” Gideon asked, his voice deadly steady.
Vance looked up, his face twisted with desperate guilt.
“Because you are Gideon Vale!
You had threatened to burn the hospital to the ground if Helena or the heir died!
You had armed men patrolling the maternity ward hallways!
We knew your reputation...
we knew what happened to the contractors who failed you on the docks!”
Vance turned his gaze toward Mallerie, unable to meet her furious, burning stare.
“Mallerie was an unmarried, uninsured banquet worker who arrived in labor via city ambulance,” Vance confessed, his words tumbling out in a frantic rush.
“She had no family.
No powerful husband.
No attorneys.
Her delivery happened forty minutes after Helena passed.
Her baby was born perfectly healthy, screaming with strong, beautiful lungs.”
Mallerie stood up from the sofa, her entire body shaking with righteous, homicidal rage.
“You stole my healthy boy to cover your own pathetic skin!” she screamed, taking a step toward the kneeling doctor.
“You let me grieve for ten months!
You made me stand over an empty grave while you handed my flesh and blood to a criminal!”
“I kept him alive!” Vance cried defensively.
“Look at him!
He has been raised in absolute luxury!
He has the best pediatricians in the world!
What could you have given him on minimum wage, Mallerie?
An eviction notice?”
Gideon stepped forward, his heavy shoe colliding violently with Vance’s chest, sending the doctor sprawling onto his back across the floor.
“Do not speak to the mother of this child,” Gideon snarled, his voice vibrating with absolute disgust.
Gideon turned toward Dr.
Mercer, who stood frozen in the corner clutching his testing kit.
“Swab them.
Right now.
I want the genetic marker profile run through your private lab before sunrise.”
Mercer moved quickly, his gloved hands expertly taking sterile buccal swabs from the inside of Mallerie’s cheek, then gently rubbing the inside of Owen’s lip.
Owen stirred, letting out a small whimper, but settled the moment Mallerie stroked his soft curls.
“How long for the definitive match?” Gideon asked the geneticist.
“Three hours if I use the high-speed sequencer at my private facility,” Mercer replied nervously.
“I will stay here and wait,” Mallerie stated firmly, her voice leaving no room for argument.
“And so will he.”
Gideon looked down at the disgraced doctor groveling on the floor.
“Marcus, take Vance to the lower levels.
Do not let him sleep.
If there are other records, adoption forgeries, or corrupt nurses involved, I want every single name on a legal affidavit before dawn.”
As the guards dragged Vance away, the heavy double doors clicked shut once more.
The penthouse fell into a suffocating, heavy silence.
The boy in Mallerie’s arms let out a tiny sigh, nuzzling deeper into her uniform.
Gideon turned toward her, the terrifying titan of Chicago’s underworld suddenly looking hollow, defeated, and profoundly alone.
May you like
The son he had mourned was indeed dead.
And the son he had loved, protected, and poured his soul into for ten agonizing months belonged to the woman standing across his living room.
