Part 2 By three that afternoon, while death waited inside my mansion, a penniless woman stood outside my gates refusing to leave5 005

The transition from the fortified Mercer estate to the bleak, freezing alleyway of Detroit took exactly four hours. It was the most agonizing four hours of my life. I stood in the makeshift decontamination room of Sethi’s underground clinic, watching through a thick pane of plexiglass as the medical transport team—flown in on my private jet—transferred Jonah and Blythe onto two steel medical cots.

The children looked so small. Their skin was translucent, their breathing shallow and labored. The transport had exhausted them, pushing them closer to the edge.

Prescott stood beside me, his arms crossed over his chest. He hadn’t spoken a word to me since I gave the order to move them. The air between us was toxic, heavy with unspoken accusations.

“You’ve crossed a line you can’t uncross, Lawson,” Prescott finally said, his voice a low, gravelly rasp. He didn’t look at me; his eyes remained fixed on the children. “If this fails, Thorne will report you. The state will investigate. You won’t just lose the twins; you’ll face federal charges for reckless endangerment and unauthorized medical experimentation.”

“If they die, Prescott, I won’t care about federal charges,” I replied, my voice hollow. “I won’t care about anything.”

“And what about her?” Prescott nodded toward the far corner of the room, where Clara Vale stood quietly. She was watching Dr. Sethi prep a massive, humming centrifuge. “She orchestrated this. She bypassed protocol, manipulated you with a letter from a dead woman, and dragged you into a black-market clinic. Have you considered that Vanguard might not have buried Sethi’s research to protect their funding? Have you considered that they buried it because it’s a death sentence?”

I turned to look at him. My chest tightened. It was the exact thought that had been keeping me awake for the last four hours, clawing at the back of my mind.

“Genevieve trusted her,” I said, though the words sounded thinner now.

“Genevieve was terrified and dying,” Prescott countered brutally. “She made a desperate choice. But you are supposed to be the rational one. You are supposed to protect this family.”

Before I could answer, the heavy plastic flaps of the inner sanctum parted, and Dr. Sethi emerged. She was wearing full sterile gear—a mask, face shield, and thick gloves. She held two heavy, lead-lined metallic cylinders in her hands.

“The retrovirus is synthesized,” Sethi announced, her voice muffled behind the mask. “I have twelve minutes before the protein bonds begin to degrade. We must begin the infusion immediately.”

I stepped forward, my heart hammering in my throat. “What are the risks?”

Sethi stopped and looked at me, her ice-blue eyes piercing through the plastic shield. “The risks? The risks are total systemic shock. The retrovirus is designed to violently aggressively overwrite their corrupted bone marrow cells. Their bodies will fight it. They will experience extreme fever, cardiac stress, and possible respiratory failure. It will look exactly like they are dying.”

“For how long?” Clara asked, stepping out of the shadows, her voice trembling slightly.

“Seventy-two hours,” Sethi replied grimly. “If they survive the next three days, the genetic anomaly will be eradicated. They will live. If their hearts cannot sustain the shock of the cellular rewrite…” She didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t have to.

I looked at Jonah and Blythe. They were sleeping, heavily sedated by the transport team. They looked so peaceful. To subject them to violent, aggressive pain, to intentionally push their failing bodies to the absolute brink of death… it felt like murder.

“Stop.”

The word echoed in the sterile room.

I turned. Prescott had drawn his weapon. The matte black barrel of his Sig Sauer was pointed directly at Dr. Sethi.

“Prescott, what the hell are you doing?” I roared, stepping between him and the doctor.

“I am doing my job, Lawson,” Prescott said, his face a mask of absolute, terrifying resolve. “I am protecting your family. I am not letting a rogue doctor inject poison into your children in an abandoned warehouse.”

“Put the gun down!” I commanded, taking a step toward him.

“No.” Prescott’s eyes locked onto mine. “You are compromised by grief, Lawson. You aren’t thinking clearly. I’ve called the authorities. Medevac helicopters from Chicago Memorial are twenty minutes away. They are coming to take the children back.”

The betrayal hit me like a physical blow. “You called Thorne?”

“I called the FBI,” Prescott corrected smoothly. “This clinic is a crime scene. Sethi is going to prison. And the twins are going back to a real hospital.”

“They will die in a real hospital!” Clara screamed, stepping in front of Sethi. “You know they will! The doctors have given up!”

“Better they die peacefully in a hospital bed than in agony on a metal table because of a madwoman’s experiment!” Prescott shouted back.

Sethi looked at the digital clock on the wall. “Ten minutes, Mercer. The virus is degrading. If we don’t infuse it now, the cure is gone forever. I cannot synthesize another batch. I used the last of Genevieve’s original baseline samples to create this one.”

I stood in the center of the room, caught between the two halves of my life. On one side, Prescott—my loyal, rational protector, holding the gun, representing safety, order, and inevitable death. On the other side, Clara and Sethi—holding a terrifying, agonizing chance at life.

I looked at the gun in Prescott’s hand. Then, I looked into his eyes.

“Prescott,” I said quietly. “You have worked for me for twenty years. You are the godfather to those children.”

“Which is why I have to stop you, Lawson.”

“If you don't lower that weapon right now,” I said, my voice dropping to a terrifying, deadly calm, “I will take it from you. And I will use it.”

Prescott’s eyes widened slightly. He saw the truth in my face. I was not Lawson Mercer the billionaire anymore. I was a father backed into a corner, and I was willing to kill the best friend I had left to save my blood.

The standoff stretched for agonizing seconds. The hum of the air filters filled the silence.

Slowly, his hand trembling slightly, Prescott lowered the gun. He didn't holster it, but he aimed it at the floor. He stepped back, his face pale and utterly defeated.

“May God forgive you, Lawson,” he whispered. “Because I won’t.”