Chapter 3 - The Attackers Didn't Want Ethan Dead—They Wanted His Blood, and the Man Leading Them Knew My Name Before Adrian Ever Told HimThe convoy survived.
Barely.
One of Adrian's men was wounded.
Two attackers were captured.
They refused to talk.
Until Adrian entered the room.
He didn't threaten them.
He simply sat.
One man looked at him.
“You're wasting your time.”
Adrian replied:
“You already lost.”
The man laughed.
“We don't care about you.”
“Who do you care about?”
“Your son.”
My stomach tightened.
The man looked toward me.
“And his mother.”
Adrian's face went cold.
“How do you know her?”
The man smiled.
“Sloan Bennett.”
I stared.
“No one knows my name.”
He laughed.
“We do.”
Adrian leaned forward.
“Who?”
The man said:
“Blackwood doesn't understand what he created.”
Adrian's expression changed.
“What does that mean?”
“Your son is the last compatible heir.”
“Heir to what?”
The man smiled.
“Project Aegis.”
The name made my stomach turn.
I had no idea what it meant.
The man continued:
“Your family thought it was a weapon.”
Adrian said:
“It wasn't.”
The man laughed.
“You really don't know.”
Then he bit down.
Adrian grabbed him.
Too late.
Poison.
The second attacker killed himself the same way.
Adrian stepped back.
His face was furious.
“What is Project Aegis?”
I asked.
He looked at me.
“My father built a private research program.”
“Why?”
“Genetic compatibility.”
“For what?”
“Biological security systems.”
I stared.
“You mean weapons?”
“Something like that.”
Ethan had a genetic marker.
A marker someone wanted.
The question was why.
We discovered the answer in an old Blackwood archive.
Project Aegis was designed to create a biological authentication system.
A bloodline could authorize hidden financial and defense networks.
Ethan's blood could open them.
The entire Blackwood organization had been built around this possibility.
But my son wasn't supposed to exist.
Not publicly.
So no one had registered him.
His genetic existence triggered the system unexpectedly.
Now everyone wanted him.
Adrian looked at the files.
“They've been waiting for an heir.”
I whispered:
“Ethan.”
“Yes.”
Then I saw something else.
My name was listed in the project.
SUBJECT MOTHER: SLOAN CARTER.
I stared.
My maiden name was wrong.
The record had been created before I met Adrian.
I couldn't understand.
“Why am I in this?”
Adrian looked at me.
“I don't know.”
Then another document appeared.
SLOAN SELECTED AS CARRIER.
My entire body went cold.
“What?”
Adrian read the date.
Ten years before our relationship.
They had selected me.
Before I knew Adrian.
Before I was pregnant.
Before Ethan existed.
I looked at him.
“Someone planned our son.”
Adrian didn't answer.
I felt sick.
“Was our relationship planned?”
He looked horrified.
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Then we found something worse.
My mother had signed the original authorization.
My mother.
Dead when I was twelve.
She had been part of Project Aegis.
Adrian sat down.
“Your mother knew my father.”
“How?”
“She worked for him.”
“And me?”
“We don't know.”
The file ended with one phrase:
Phase Two requires natural conception between compatible bloodlines.
I stared.
Someone had designed a program that depended on two families producing a child.
Our son.
I couldn't breathe.
Adrian took my hand.
“This wasn't about money.”
“What was it about?”
“Their future.”
Our son wasn't an heir.
May you like
He was a biological key.
And someone had been planning for him long before he was born.
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