Chapter 6 - THE SEVEN-YEAR-OLD WHO OUTSMARTED AN EMPIREI ran.
I heard Adrian shouting behind me, but nothing could stop me.
Not guns.
Not agents.
Not the Blackwood family.
My son was alone with the man who had altered his body before he was even born.
When I reached the trauma wing, the doors were sealed.
Through the glass, I saw Ethan sitting on the bed while Vale stood behind him.
A scalpel pressed beneath his chin.
“Ethan!” I screamed.
His frightened eyes found mine.
Vale smiled.
“Where are the brothers?”
Adrian and Damian arrived together.
For one surreal moment, they stood side by side—two men born from the same darkness, both dying from the same poisoned blood.
Vale opened the intercom.
“Place your weapons on the floor.”
They obeyed.
“Slide them away.”
They did.
“What do you want?” Adrian demanded.
Vale’s eyes glittered.
“What I always wanted. Proof that I succeeded.”
Damian stepped closer to the glass.
“You worked for our father.”
“I used your father. Sebastian wanted immortality for his bloodline. I wanted to change humanity.”
“By murdering a child?” I asked.
“By harvesting the first self-repairing genome.”
Ethan began to cry silently.
I pressed my palm against the glass.
“Baby, look at me.”
He did.
“Remember the dinosaur game?”
Vale frowned.
Ethan blinked.
Our dinosaur game had begun when he was four. Whenever he felt afraid, I told him to imagine he was a velociraptor—quiet, clever, waiting for the right moment.
“What dinosaur?” he whispered.
“The smartest one.”
His lower lip trembled.
Then he nodded.
Vale pulled him tighter.
“No games.”
Ethan looked down.
Near his bare foot lay the plastic call button attached to the bed.
He curled his toes around the cord.
Vale did not notice.
Adrian did.
His eyes shifted toward me.
I saw understanding move across his face.
“Doctor,” Adrian said loudly, drawing Vale’s attention, “you made one mistake.”
Vale sneered. “Which one?”
“You assumed Ethan inherited only our blood.”
Ethan yanked the call-button cord.
The IV pole toppled.
Vale turned instinctively.
Ethan bit his hand.
Vale screamed.
The scalpel dropped.
Adrian shot the glass control panel beside the door.
Sparks erupted.
The lock released.
We crashed into the room.
I pulled Ethan from the bed as Adrian tackled Vale.
Damian seized the scalpel and drove it into the doctor’s shoulder, pinning him to the floor.
Vale howled.
“You need me!” he screamed. “Without me, the mutation will kill both of you!”
Adrian knelt over him.
“I would rather die than become the man my father wanted.”
Damian stood beside them, breathing heavily.
His face had turned gray.
Then he collapsed.
Medical staff rushed in after the federal agents secured the floor.
Adrian swayed.
Blood appeared beneath his nose.
He wiped it away before Ethan could see.
But Ethan saw.
“You’re sick,” my son whispered.
Adrian forced a smile.
“I have had worse days.”
Ethan looked toward Damian, who lay unconscious on a gurney.
“Is he my dad too?”
No one answered.
Ethan frowned.
“That’s confusing.”
Despite everything, a broken laugh escaped me.
Adrian knelt in front of him.
“A blood test does not decide who your family is.”
Ethan studied his face.
“Do you want to be my dad?”
Adrian’s eyes filled with something I had never expected to see.
Tears.
“Yes.”
“Even if the paper says no?”
“Especially then.”
Ethan reached out and touched the blood beneath Adrian’s nose.
“Then I want to help you.”
“No,” Adrian said immediately.
“The doctor said my blood can fix you.”
“No.”
“But—”
Adrian gripped his shoulders.
“You will never be cut open for me. You will never be hurt for my name. You will never owe me your blood.”
Ethan looked at him solemnly.
“What if I only give a little?”
The room went silent.
One of the physicians stepped forward.
“There may be another option.”
The doctor held up Ethan’s newest laboratory report.
“His blood does not need to be harvested in lethal quantities. The regenerative factor can be isolated from plasma.”
I stared at her.
“You can treat them without hurting Ethan?”
“In theory. A standard pediatric donation could provide enough cells to create a cultured therapy.”
Vale began laughing from the floor.
“You think it is that simple?”
The physician looked at him.
“Actually, Doctor Vale, your notes were already uploaded to the hospital system.”
Vale’s laughter stopped.
Ethan raised his hand.
“I did that.”
Everyone turned toward him.
He pointed to the tablet beside the bed.
“He left it unlocked. I sent all the files to Mom’s email.”
I stared at my seven-year-old son.
“You did what?”
Ethan shrugged.
“He had the same password as the Wi-Fi.”
Adrian looked at him with unmistakable pride.
May you like
Damian, barely conscious on the gurney, opened one eye.
“That,” he whispered, “is definitely a Blackwood.”
