Chapter 55 - The Mother’s Judas Kiss
She looked older than she had three days ago in the holding cell. The immaculate veneer of Boston high society had begun to crack around the edges; her silver hair was pulled back into a severe, unyielding bun, and the fine lines around her mouth were etched with permanent, predatory tension.
"You always were an unruly child, Elizabeth," my mother said softly, her voice carrying across the empty alleyway over the gentle patter of rain. "You should have stayed on that hospital bed. You should have let the sedatives take you."
I held Leo tighter, retreating two steps until my back hit the cold brick wall of the alley. "You tried to murder me. You smiled while Chloe drank to my baby’s death, and then you threw me over the railing."
"I did what had to be done to preserve what this family built!" Victoria snapped, her cane striking the wet pavement with a sharp, resounding crack. "You think this was about an inheritance? About bank accounts and real estate? You fool. Look at your grandmother. She is ninety-four years old, Elizabeth! Ninety-four! And her heart, her lungs, her kidneys—they belong to an eighteen-year-old."
A cold, bottomless horror opened up in my gut. The pieces of the puzzle that Detective Miller had unearthed—the hidden ledgers, the surrogate clauses, the vanishing young girls from the St. Jude's clinics—suddenly aligned into a nightmare beyond human comprehension.
"The bloodline," I choked out, nausea rising violently in my throat. "The surrogates... Chloe’s phantom pregnancy... my pregnancy..."
"Our blood possesses a unique HLA antigen match," Victoria said, stepping closer, her eyes glittering with cold fanatical pride. "A genetic mutation carried exclusively through the Vance maternal line. It prevents organ rejection. For fifty years, your grandmother has funded the best geneticists on earth. But synthetic harvesting fails. The tissue must come from a living, biological vessel of the bloodline. A pure direct heir."
"You bred us," I whispered, the words trembling with unimaginable revulsion. "You had me... you had Chloe... just to be spare parts?"
"Chloe was useless. Her tissue mutated; she was sterile, damaged goods," Victoria sneered, dismissing her favorite daughter with a wave of her gloved hand. "She thought she was helping me replace you. She was too stupid to realize she was just bait to force you into the private clinic. But you... you were perfect. And the child you carry inside you—the child you delivered—carries the pristine, unmutated stem line Eleanor needs for the complete neural regeneration."
May you like
Two men in black medical scrubs stepped out from behind the ambulance, carrying heavy restraint cases and pneumatic hypo-injectors.
"Hand me the boy, Elizabeth," Victoria commanded, extending a leather-gloved hand toward me. "And perhaps I will allow you to live out your remaining days in a private room at the sanctuary. Defy me now, and you will be harvested alongside him."
