Ten days. That was all the doctor believed my six-year-old twins had left, and for the first time in my life, all the money, guns, fear, and power attached to the Mercer name meant absolutely nothing. By three that afternoon, while death waited inside my mansion, a penniless woman stood outside my gates refusing to leave—and I had no idea she was about to change everything.

The extraction was brutal, clinical, and silent.

Lawson didn't flinch as the thick needle broke the skin of his forearm, drawing his dark, heavy blood into three consecutive glass cylinders. He watched, jaw clenched, as Iris rushed the samples to the estate’s secondary centrifuge lab housed down the hall.

For forty-five agonizing minutes, the private medical suite was filled only with the steady, mechanical beep of heart monitors and the soft, labored breathing of the twins.

Prescott stood by the door, his phone pressed to his ear, receiving encrypted updates from the exterior security perimeter.

“Boss,” Prescott whispered, stepping closer to Lawson, who was wiping a drop of blood from his arm with an antiseptic pad. “Our scouts report that Crosby Vane’s advance units have mobilized. Three armored transport vans just turned onto the private access road. They know Yates has been compromised. They’re coming to take the lab notes and clear the estate.”

Lawson looked at his reflection in the glass partition. His face was hard as granite, etched with the scars of a dozen syndicate wars, but beneath the terrifying exterior beat the heart of a father whose children were fighting for their next breath.

“Let them come,” Lawson said quietly. “We have unfinished business with Mr. Vane anyway.”

Just then, the door to the centrifuge lab swung open.

Iris stepped out, wearing protective gloves and a surgical mask, holding two custom-mixed IV bags filled with a warm, golden-hued peptide solution. Her eyes were shining with exhausted, triumphant relief.

“It worked,” Iris breathed. “The cellular compound synthesized perfectly with your blood plasma, Mr. Mercer. It’s stable.”

“Administer it,” Lawson commanded, his voice cracking slightly.

Iris hurried to the twins' beds. With practiced, gentle precision, she plugged the new IV lines into Jonah and Blythe’s saline ports, watching the golden fluid slowly travel down the clear plastic tubing and enter their veins.

For a terrifying minute, nothing happened. The monitors hummed. The room held its breath.

Then, color slowly began to creep back into Jonah’s pale cheeks.

Blythe stirred, her small fingers twitching inside Jonah’s grip. Her eyelids fluttered open, revealing clear, unfogged dark eyes.

“Daddy...?” she whispered, her voice stronger than it had been in weeks.

Lawson rushed to the bedside, falling to his knees so his face was level with hers. He took her small, warm hand in his, feeling a steady, healthy pulse beneath her skin.

“I’m right here, angel,” Lawson choked out, tears finally breaking free, cutting clean tracks down his rugged face. “I’m right here.”

Jonah opened his eyes too, blinking against the bright lights. “Dad... I'm hungry.”