Chapter 5 - The Rat in the House
Ten minutes later, the heavy oak doors of the study flew open.
Dr. Franklin Yates—dressed in an immaculate white lab coat, his gray hair neatly combed, holding a gold-plated medical tablet—strode into the room, looking deeply offended.
“Mr. Mercer, what is the meaning of this?” Yates demanded, his voice carrying the haughty irritation of a man accustomed to being treated like a god. “I was in the medical suite monitoring Jonah and Blythe’s oxygen saturation levels. Pulling me away from—!”
Yates stopped dead in his tracks.
His eyes landed on Iris Thorne sitting by the fireplace.
The immaculate doctor’s face instantly drained of every drop of color. The gold tablet slipped from his fingers, hitting the Persian rug with a dull, muffled thud.
“Iris...?” Yates whispered, his voice trembling like a leaf in a hurricane. “No. That’s impossible. You were liquidated in the Philadelphia facility.”
Iris stood up slowly from the armchair. The exhaustion in her face was replaced by a cold, righteous fury. She walked across the rug until she stood three feet away from the brilliant medical researcher who had sold his soul to the highest bidder.
“You thought you could bury me in a concrete box, Franklin?” Iris asked softly, her voice dripping with venom. “You thought you could burn the lab, murder Genevieve, and poison her children to cover up your corporate masters' crimes?”
Yates backed up a step, his eyes darting wildly toward the exit. But Prescott and the two armed guards had already moved silently to block the double doors.
“Mr. Mercer—don't listen to her!” Yates stammered, sweating profusely, waving his hands frantically. “She’s delusional! A rogue lab assistant who suffered a psychotic break during the Evanston fire! She’s hallucinating!”
Lawson didn't raise his voice. He didn't pull a gun. He simply walked around the mahogany desk, picking up a heavy crystal paperweight in his large hand.
“Dr. Yates,” Lawson said, his voice dropping into a register that made the air in the room feel heavy as lead. “How many times did you administer the cellular inhibitor to my children during their routine pediatric checkups over the last three years?”
Yates swallowed hard, his throat dry as bone. “Never! I am a physician! I took an oath to—!”
“Shut up,” Lawson commanded.
In a single, lightning-fast motion, Lawson closed the distance, grabbed Yates by the lapels of his pristine white lab coat, and slammed him hard against the reinforced mahogany bookcase, rattling the crystal decanters and heavy medical binders.
“You watched my wife die,” Lawson roared, his face inches from the terrified doctor’s, veins bulging in his neck. “You stood at our dinner table, smiled at my babies, accepted millions of dollars in research grants from my foundation... while you were slowly executing them from the inside out!”
“Mercer, please!” Yates sobbed, clawing at Lawson’s wrists. “It wasn't my choice! Vane! Crosby Vane threatened my family! He said if I didn't complete the trial using your children as the final control group, he’d wipe out my entire bloodline!”
The confession hung in the suffocating air of the study.
Prescott’s hand drifted to his sidearm.
Lawson held the doctor suspended against the bookcase for a long, agonizing moment. Then, with a disgusted shove, he hurled Yates across the room, sending him crashing onto the floor.
“Prescott,” Lawson said, his chest heaving as he straightened his cuffs.
May you like
“Boss?”
“Lock him in the lower holding cells. Let him think about his oath while we figure out how to undo what he started.” Lawson looked down at Iris. “And get our medical team down to the private suite immediately. We’re throwing out Yates’s protocol tonight.”
