Rafe’s jaw tightened. “Town’s not the endgame. It’s the beta test.”
My attention caught on another screen, this one showing a communications log. Most were routine reports, status updates time-stamped throughout the day. But one folder labeled “Executive” stood out from the others.
I clicked it open, revealing dozens of messages.
[SECONDARY ASSET RECOVERY PROTOCOLS]
[PHASE TWO IMPLEMENTATION TIMELINE]
[PRIMARY INVESTOR DIRECTIVES RE: WINSLOW SUBJECTS]
My finger hovered over the third file, heart pounding. I opened it, and a partial message appeared through the encryption:
[PRIMARY INVESTOR CONFIRMS PRIORITY ON EMMA WINSLOW RECOVERY. SUBJECT POSSESSES GENETIC MARKERS OF INTEREST. MOTHER EVELYN WINSLOW SECONDARY PRIORITY. USE MINIMUM FORCE ON CHILD.]
Emma.
Sophia’s birth name—the one on her original birth certificate. The name only Langston would know.
This wasn’t a simple revenge operation. Something bigger was happening, something that made Sophia valuable beyond being Langston’s daughter.
“Son of a bitch,” I breathed, ice flooding my veins. “They’re not after Evelyn.”
Flynn leaned closer. “What are you seeing?”
“They want Sophia.” I pointed to the message. “But look at this—‘genetic markers of interest.’ She’s not just his daughter. She’s something else to them. Something they need.”
“Innovixus?” Rafe suggested, his voice tight.
Jesus. After what those bastards had done to Gage, I hoped to hell not. But the pieces were clicking into place. Gage’s super-soldier modifications. The biohacking experiments. The genetic engineering. And now this: a five-year-old girl with “genetic markers of interest.”
I scrolled through more files, my gut churning. Project folders with clinical names: GENESIS PROTOCOL. BLOODLINE VIABILITY TESTING. ENHANCED HEREDITARY TRAITS.
One file made my blood run cold: [SUBJECT E-001 - EMBRYONIC DEVELOPMENT - MATERNAL DNA: WINSLOW, E. / PATERNAL DNA: CLASSIFIED MILITARY ASSET]
My hands shook on the keyboard.
No. No, they couldn’t have?—
“Jesus Christ,” I breathed.
Flynn leaned closer. “What?”
I pulled up another file, this one containing medical records. Fertility clinic visits. IVF treatments that Evelyn had gone through, thinking she was conceiving with her husband’s genetic material. I could picture her there--vulnerable, desperate for achild, trusting the doctors Langston had paid for. Trusting that what they put inside her body was what she’d agreed to.
Except the sperm they’d used hadn’t been Langston’s.
“They used her,” I said, my voice shaking with barely controlled rage. “Evelyn went through IVF thinking she was having Langston’s child. But they switched the genetic material. Used someone else’s--someone they’d already experimented on.”
My throat closed. Evelyn had carried Sophia for nine months, loved her from the moment she learned she was pregnant, fought like hell to protect her from Langston. And the whole time, Innovixus had been watching. Collecting data. Waiting to see if their experiment worked.
She’d been nothing but an incubator to them. A womb to rent.
Rafe moved closer to the screen, reading over my shoulder. “So Langston?—”
“Isn’t her biological father.” The full horror of it crashed over me. “But Evelyn is her mother. They just made sure the father was someone with the genetic markers they wanted.”
More files confirmed it. Genetic profiles showing Sophia’s maternal DNA matched Evelyn perfectly--but the paternal markers came from an unidentified military subject. Monitoring protocols that tracked Evelyn’s pregnancy week by week, feeding data back to Innovixus researchers. Postnatal assessments documenting Sophia’s development against “expected parameters.”
