Chapter 18 - The Blood Key
"Arthur Sterling," Margaret spat, her eyes narrowing with visceral hatred. "I should have known you were behind this."
"Olivia was always troublesome, Margaret," Sterling said smoothly, adjusting his cufflinks. "Your daughter was a brilliant scientist, but she lacked commercial vision. She wanted to blow the whistle on our pediatric neuro-stabilizer. Do you have any idea how much money that compound represents? Billions in global patents."
"It caused catastrophic brain swelling in toddlers!" Margaret hissed. "You knew it was killing children!"
"An acceptable margin of statistical error during development," Sterling replied without an ounce of remorse. "Olivia stole the primary data matrices and encrypted them with an experimental synthetic DNA lock keyed to her and her immediate offspring. When she died... inconveniently... we thought the research was lost. Until Vanessa discovered the nursery footage."
Vanessa stepped forward, her face twisted in a smug, condescending sneer. "Ethan was so pathetic, Margaret. Sitting in that house, crying over his dead wife. It was sickeningly easy to slide into his bed. But the little brat wouldn't let go of that disgusting blanket. I tore that house apart for two years looking for Olivia's drives, never realizing she had spun the data into the conductive silver threading of the quilt itself."
"You abused that child," Margaret said, her voice shaking with controlled rage. "You tortured him behind closed doors."
"He was an obstacle," Vanessa sneered. "A screaming, whining little reminder of Olivia. But today, he’s my ticket to fifty million dollars."
Vanessa grabbed Noah’s small hand, yanking it toward the biometric glass scanner on the desk. Noah thrashed, screaming behind the duct tape.
"Don't touch him!" Margaret lunged forward, but the private security guard slammed the butt of his rifle into her stomach, dropping Margaret to her knees on the cold concrete.
"Scan him," Sterling ordered cold-bloodedly.
Vanessa pressed Noah’s tiny palm hard against the glass plate.
A high-pitched tone sounded. A green light flashed across the monitor.
*BIOMETRIC CONFIRMED: DNA MATCH 99.8%. DECRYPTING MASTER ARCHIVE.*
Lines of code cascaded across the laptop screen. Arthur Sterling smiled with predatory satisfaction. "Download it to the cold storage drive. Once it’s complete, execute all three of them. Make it look like an accidental chemical spill."
May you like
"With pleasure," the guard said, raising his rifle toward Margaret's head.
***
