Chapter 5 - SIX EMBRYOS AND ONE DEAD MAN
On the screen, Julian Hale looked almost cheerful. It was the face he'd used when announcing scholarships and hospitals with the family name engraved above their entrances. Victor remembered being eight years old and thinking that smile meant everything was safe. As the video began, he felt the memory turn sour.
"Project EOS has entered the implementation phase," Julian said. "We have six viable embryos created from Victor and Isabella's genetic material. Isabella's death complicated the original family plan. It did not invalidate the opportunity."
Victor reached for the pause button, but Marcus raised a hand. "Let it run. We're making an authenticated copy."
Julian continued, detailing arrangements with Dr. Keller, a clinical administrator, and private accounts used to hide the initiative from ordinary oversight. Five embryos had been scheduled for transfer into five different women. The sixth would remain in storage as a safeguard, a word that sounded grotesque in context.
"Participants will receive information appropriate to the treatments they believe they are undergoing," Julian said. "Their understanding of the embryos' origin is not operationally necessary."
Victor closed his eyes. "He knew."
He'd hoped, for one irrational moment, that Julian had been deceived by a corrupt doctor or had authorized research without understanding the human cost. The video destroyed that hope. His father had considered consent an inconvenience that could be managed with paperwork.
"Do we know how many pregnancies succeeded?" Victor asked.
Marcus scanned the index. "Not yet. The ledger records five transfers. Only one has a complete birth record in this box. Sophie may be one of five children, or there may be fewer. We can't turn a code into a child until we have evidence."
"And the remaining embryo?"
"The storage record points to a private facility outside Zurich. Swiss counsel will seek an immediate preservation order. No one should make decisions about it while we're still discovering what's been done."
Victor looked at Isabella's photograph. He had loved her fiercely. They had spent two years attempting fertility treatment, working through the disappointment of each unsuccessful cycle together. They had created the embryos with written instructions for storage and consent. After Isabella died suddenly from an aneurysm, Victor had believed those instructions remained in force. Julian had apparently treated their grief as permission to rewrite them.
"Don't let Renata touch another file," Victor said.
Marcus shook his head. "We'll ask the board and authorities for appropriate protective steps. We need evidence that survives a courtroom, not just a locked office."
The next morning, Evelyn sat across from Jade in a quiet conference room and watched an excerpt of the video. She had asked to see it. Jade had warned her that the content could be distressing, and Mara waited beside her with a glass of water.
Julian spoke of the women who would receive the transfers as if they were clinical supplies. Evelyn stopped the video before he finished the first minute.
"I worked at a hotel in Bern," she said. "I'd been saving for fertility treatment after surgery left me with complications. Keller's clinic advertised a program I could afford. They told me the embryos were mine. I followed every instruction. I named my daughter before she was born."
She stared at the dark monitor. "He didn't even think I needed to know whose baby I was carrying."
"You had a right to informed consent," Jade replied. "What happened was a violation regardless of the genetic results. Your relationship to Sophie is a separate question that we will protect carefully."
Evelyn picked at a thread on her sleeve. "What if Sophie grows up and decides I'm not her real mother?"
Mara leaned forward. "What if she grows up knowing the woman who carried her fought for her after being told she was gone? That's real too."
"But I missed two years. I don't know her favorite breakfast or how to make her sleep when she's sick."
"You can learn," Mara said. "If you and Victor agree on what's best for her, you can learn together."
Evelyn didn't answer. For the first time, hope frightened her as much as loss. She knew how to survive being alone. She didn't know how to be the mother of a child who already had a home, a nanny, a father, and a dead woman whose face hung in silver frames.
That afternoon, Victor came to Jade's office alone. He sat in the waiting room rather than entering the meeting uninvited. When Evelyn asked him in, he placed a small bag on the table.
Inside was Sophie's stuffed rabbit, freshly washed. It had a crooked yellow star sewn onto one ear.
Evelyn touched it. "She likes this one?"
"She carries it everywhere. Last night she put it on the spare pillow and pointed to the door. I think she was asking for you."
"I'm not trying to take her away from you."
Victor looked genuinely surprised. "I know. I'm not trying to keep her away from you, either."
She studied him. "What about Isabella?"
The question landed softly and hurt more than anger would have. Victor took a moment before answering.
"I loved her. I'll always love the part of our lives that was real. But she never agreed to have children after her death by deceiving other women. If she were standing here, she would be furious with my father."
"You can't know that."
"I know what she told me. The rest I owe her the courtesy of not inventing."
For the first time, Evelyn saw the grieving husband beneath the famous name. She had expected him to speak about assets and lineage; instead, he spoke about a woman who had insisted on choosing their own future. Whatever form their new connection took, it would have to make room for Isabella's memory without allowing Julian to weaponize it.
Before Victor left, Evelyn surprised herself. "Sophie likes bananas cut in circles," she said. "She told me at the playroom."
He smiled. "She used to prefer strawberries. Apparently my household is changing faster than I can keep track."
"Maybe that's not bad."
"Maybe not."
But when Marcus called an hour later, there was no trace of his smile. The forensic team had recovered a second video, recorded a week before Julian's death. In it, the old man discussed a list of five women and ordered that any failed or disputed birth be reported as a medical loss.
"There are five names," Marcus said. "And the file containing them has been deliberately erased."
May you like
Victor looked toward Sophie's nursery through the open study door. The child was building a tower with blocks, humming softly to herself.
"Then we recover it," he said. "Every name."
