Chapter 7 - The Architect of Silence
The Blackwood Manor stood like a gothic fortress behind twelve-foot wrought-iron gates, surrounded by hundreds of acres of private pine forest on the outskirts of our town. I had driven past those stone walls a thousand times on my way to my architecture office, never knowing that the monster pulling the strings of my life was breathing behind those limestone gargoyles.
The rain had escalated into an autumn blizzard, sleet caking the windshields of the four State Police cruisers that joined Ramirez and me. Emma was asleep in the back of Ramirez’s car, wrapped in three wool blankets, clutching the torn body of Bunny, which Miller had taped together with tactical duct tape.
“Arthur Sterling was declared legally dead in 1996 following an offshore banking scandal,” Ramirez said, checking the feed from a drone unit circling the manor. “He used his wealth to buy total legal invisibility. He’s been running his genetic re-harvesting program from that bunker for three decades.”
“Why Claire?” I asked, staring at the darkened silhouette of the mansion through the blizzard. “Why did she run?”
“Because she discovered that Arthur wasn't using the clones to cure diseases,” Ramirez said grimly. “He was using them as biological organ reservoirs. Whenever his organs began to fail from cellular degeneration, he harvested a child carrying his genetic sequence for tissue transplants. Chloe and Sophia weren't adopted by foreign elites, Daniel. They were strip-mined for bone marrow, lung lobes, and renal grafts.”
Bile rose in my throat. The horror was so monstrous, so clinical, that it defied comprehension. Claire hadn't just fled to protect herself; she had run across the country with those frozen blastocysts to save them from being carved apart by their own creator.
“And Emma was next,” I said.
“Emma has the highest HLA compatibility with him,” Ramirez nodded. “He’s dying of stage-four pulmonary fibrosis. He needed her lungs.”
Miller stepped up to our car window. “SWAT is in position around the service entrance. The estate’s private guards have been disarmed at the gatehouse. The old man is inside the conservatory on the third floor. He’s on life support. He can't run.”
I opened the car door.
“Daniel, no,” Ramirez caught my arm. “You stay with Emma.”
“No,” I looked Ramirez in the eyes. There was no fear left in me. There was only the icy, absolute clarity of a father who had walked through hell to claim his child’s future. “He killed Claire. He tore my family apart. I am going up those stairs.”
Ramirez held my gaze for three seconds, saw the immovable stone behind my eyes, and reached into her jacket. She handed me a spare Glock 19.
May you like
“Don't draw it unless I draw mine,” she said. “Let’s end this.”
***
