Chapter 5 - The Child Who Wasn't Supposed to Exist
The missing samples changed everything.
Someone was afraid of the truth.
Alex hired a private investigator.
Elena refused at first.
Then she agreed.
They discovered the clinic had been bought through a holding company twenty years earlier.
The owner?
Vance Capital.
Alex felt sick.
His family owned the place where the embryos had been created.
They had controlled the records.
They controlled the data.
And they could manipulate the results.
The investigator found another lead.
A nurse named Carla Monroe.
She had worked at the clinic during the pregnancies.
Carla agreed to meet.
“I've waited years for someone to ask.”
She looked at Elena.
“I remember you.”
“What do you remember?”
“Your mother-in-law.”
Elena stiffened.
“She came to the clinic before the transfer.”
“What did she do?”
“She demanded access to the embryos.”
“Why?”
“To select one.”
Alex went still.
“What?”
Carla continued.
“She said the Vance family needed a child with certain genetic traits.”
Elena's face drained.
“Traits?”
“Intelligence markers. Health markers. Family history.”
Alex stared.
“This was genetic selection.”
Carla nodded.
“She wanted a perfect heir.”
“And the embryos?”
“She rejected one.”
“Why?”
“It didn't meet her criteria.”
Alex felt nauseated.
“Which one?”
Carla whispered a code.
E-17.
Elena closed her eyes.
Emma had been the first embryo.
The others had been labeled 18, 19, and 20.
But there was a fifth.
E-17.
The child Beatrice rejected.
A child who had somehow been transferred to another patient.
Alex asked:
“Who?”
Carla looked at him.
“I don't know.”
But then she produced a photograph.
A woman.
Holding a newborn.
Beside her was a younger Elena.
Alex stared.
“That's my mother.”
“No.”
Carla shook her head.
“That's not Beatrice.”
The woman beside Elena was another nurse.
A patient advocate.
Her name was Rosa Delgado.
Rosa had adopted one of the embryos.
Alex found her in Maine.
She was raising a six-year-old boy.
His name was Leo.
The DNA results later confirmed it.
Leo was genetically related to Alex.
Not Elena.
The clinic had mixed records.
One of the children Elena raised wasn't genetically hers.
But that changed nothing.
Leo was still part of the family.
And there was something else.
The test results showed that the triplets were genetically identical.
But Emma wasn't.
That meant Elena had carried a separate pregnancy.
Alex sat with the children after learning this.
Emma looked up.
“Why are you sad?”
He smiled.
“I'm not sad.”
“You're thinking.”
“Yes.”
“What about?”
“You.”
She smiled.
“Me?”
“All of you.”
Emma held his hand.
“Are you staying?”
The question broke him.
“Yes.”
She smiled.
“Good.”
Elena watched from the doorway.
Alex looked at her.
“I don't care what the DNA says.”
She nodded.
“I know.”
“They're mine because I choose them.”
“And they have to choose you.”
“I know.”
He smiled.
“I'll wait.”
Three days later, Rosa came to Boston.
She brought Leo.
He was quiet.
Suspicious.
He looked at Alex and said:
“You look like me.”
Alex laughed softly.
“Apparently.”
Leo stared.
“Are you my daddy?”
Alex froze.
Rosa looked away.
“I told him the truth.”
Alex crouched.
“I don't know what title you want me to have.”
Leo shrugged.
“Maybe Dad.”
The word broke him.
“Okay.”
Leo stepped closer.
“You'll visit?”
“As often as you want.”
The four children welcomed him.
Soon the group of children became five.
Maya from the previous version? No—just these children.
Elena watched the five of them play.
For the first time, she saw something she never imagined.
Alex didn't care about heirs anymore.
He cared about children.
But Beatrice still had one final weapon.
She filed for custody of Emma and the triplets through the Vance family trust.
Her lawyers argued Elena had unlawfully concealed the children's existence.
The judge ordered a full investigation.
And then Elena discovered something terrifying.
The hospital record from the day Emma was born had been altered.
The original record stated:
Mother: Elena Rivas.
Father: Alex Vance.
But the amended record stated:
Mother: Unknown.
Father: Unknown.
Someone had erased Elena and Alex from their own daughter's birth record.
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And only one person had legal authority to request the change.
Beatrice.
