Chapter 3 - Blood and Bio-Tech
The silk ribbons pulled away smoothly, sliding off the heavy velvet boxes like water.
Inside my box lay a heavy, antique leather-bound journal fastened with a brass padlock, alongside a sleek, silver metallic cylinder no larger than a fountain pen. Inside Esme’s crimson box was an identical cylinder and a polished brass key that matched the lock on my journal.
Father had split his final secret between his twins.
“What is this?” Esme breathed, holding the metallic cylinder up to the light of the crystal chandelier. It glowed with a faint, pulsing blue LED strip along its side.
“That,” Dante said, standing up to his full height, “is the reason your father was killed.”
Mom stopped fighting Dante’s guards. She stared at the blue-light cylinder in Esme’s small hand, her face completely drained of color.
“Julian’s prototype,” she whispered, her voice barely a breath. “He... he actually finished it?”
“He finished it five years ago,” Dante said, staring down at her coldly. “Before he died. Before your board members decided that a permanent treatment was less profitable than a lifelong subscription.”
My mind was spinning. I looked down at the brass key in Esme’s hand, then at the padlock on the journal on my lap.
“Esme,” I said softly. “Give me the key.”
Esme handed it to me without hesitation. My fingers were cold as I fitted the key into the brass lock of Dad’s journal. It turned with a satisfying, quiet click.
I opened the heavy cover. The first page was filled with our father’s familiar, precise handwriting—blue ink, slanting slightly to the right, exactly as he used to write on our bedtime birthday cards when we were little.
To my brave girls, Ivy and Esme,
If you are reading this, it means Dante kept his word, and I am no longer there to hold your hands. I am so sorry I couldn't stay.
You were seven years old when the doctors told your mother and me that you had a rare, degenerative neurological condition. They said you would lose the ability to walk by the time you were ten. They said there was no cure.
They lied.
I created Voss Biotech to save you. And three months before my accident, I succeeded. The blue cylinders hold the synthesis formula for Neuro-Regen. It stops the degeneration and repairs damaged spinal nerves within weeks.
But my business partners—and your mother—realized what the formula meant. If we released a one-time cure, Voss Biotech’s stock would drop. If we held it back and sold expensive management drugs, the company would be worth billions.
I refused to sell my daughters’ freedom for profit.
If you are reading this, beware of Dr. Harrison Sterling. And do not trust the medication you are being given every morning.
My breath hitched. I stopped reading.
Every single morning at eight o’clock, the mansion’s private nurse, hired directly by Dr. Harrison Sterling—Voss Biotech’s Chief Scientific Officer—administered two small blue pills to Esme and me. Mom had always told us those pills were keeping the degeneration from spreading to our lungs.
“They’re poisoning us,” I gasped out loud, my eyes darting up to look at Mom.
Esme squeezed her eyes shut, a tear slipping down her cheek. “Mom... is it true? The morning medicine... is it hurting us?”
Mom looked as though she had been struck by lightning. “No! No, baby, no! I swear to God, I didn't know!” She pushed past Dante’s guards, dropping onto her knees in front of our wheelchairs, trying to take our hands. “I loved your father! I loved him! I took the company over to protect his legacy!”
“You let Sterling handle their medical care, Celeste,” Dante said, his voice dropping into a dangerous, dark register. “You were so busy chasing the market valuation that you never checked what Sterling was putting into their IVs. You let a predator raise Julian’s daughters.”
Before Mom could answer, the heavy double doors of the mansion were suddenly blown off their hinges with a deafening CRACK.
Shattered mahogany debris flew across the marble floor.
May you like
Through the dust and smoke, six men in tactical black gear rushed into the grand foyer, holding suppressed automatic rifles. Behind them stepped a tall, silver-haired man wearing an immaculate white lab coat over a bespoke suit.
Dr. Harrison Sterling.
