Chapter 25 - The Billionaire's Secret Will
Mara didn't waste a second. She dragged Cruz's limp body into a storage locker, slammed the padlock shut, and rushed back to Clara.
"Hold on, Clara. Breathe. Slow, deep breaths," Mara commanded, pulling out a sterile surgical kit from Cruz’s pack. "I've patched up gut wounds in Helmand Province. I can deliver my own niece."
"Mara... the briefcase," Clara breathed, her voice barely a whisper through her chattering teeth. "The lock... Lily’s locket. Try Lily's locket."
Mara looked over at the titanium case resting on the operating table. The biometric lock had failed during the explosion at the pier, but a secondary, mechanical keyhole was visible beneath the digital faceplate.
Mara pulled out the tiny silver locket they had recovered from Lily when she was found in the cart. She snapped the pendant open, revealing a micro-laser cut key hidden inside the hollowed-out silver frame.
She inserted the key into the case and turned it.
A crisp, mechanical click echoed through the room. The pressurized seals hissed, and the lid opened.
Inside lay three cryogenic storage vials filled with clear, amber fluid, and a hardened military-grade tablet displaying a decrypted dossier. Mara swiped the screen, her eyes scanning the top-secret documents.
What she read made the breath leave her lungs.
"My God..." Mara whispered.
"What is it?" Clara asked between ragged, panting breaths.
"David didn't sell Lily to Voss because he owed gambling debts," Mara said, her hands shaking with cold rage. "Lily isn't David’s daughter. Clara... seven years ago, when you were admitted to Northwestern Hospital for that appendectomy... Eleanor Voss’s late son, Thomas Voss, was the surgeon."
Clara’s eyes widened in sheer disbelief. "No... that’s impossible..."
"He harvested your ova. He fertilized them with his own genetic material and implanted them without your knowledge. Lily is the direct, biological granddaughter of Eleanor Voss—the sole heir to the entire Voss multi-billion-dollar estate. That's why they hid her in the hotel! Eleanor wanted to eliminate you so she could claim legal custody of Lily and seize the entire trust before the Board dissolved the family company!"
And the child Clara was carrying right now?
Mara read the next line on the tablet, and her blood ran ice-cold.
"The second child," Mara read, her voice cracking, "is the Board’s prototype. Created using synthesized DNA to bypass the trust’s inheritance clauses. If this baby is born alive and registered under Board custody, Eleanor Voss loses everything—and the Board legally absorbs the entire Voss empire."
Clara screamed—not from horror, but from an overwhelming, unstoppable wave of agony.
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"Mara! It’s coming! I can't hold it anymore! It's coming now!"
At that exact moment, the heavy blast doors of the asylum basement blew inward with a concussive roar, filling the room with blinding smoke and the deafening clatter of automatic gunfire.
