Chapter 7 - The Vault of Sins
Z
The basement of First National Bank felt like a concrete fortress. The air was cool, smelling of old metal and aged paper. A solemn bank manager accompanied me down the narrow corridor, his keys jangling with every step.
"Box 408," the manager announced, stopping in front of a heavy steel wall lined with hundreds of small metallic doors.
I handed him the key Nathan had hidden inside the framing of the wilted fern—a discovery I had made late last night after dissecting the plant in a fit of desperate searching.
The manager inserted his master key, turned it alongside mine, and pulled open the heavy steel door. He slid out a long, metallic box and placed it on a viewing table. "I'll give you some privacy, Mrs. Vance."
Once he locked the heavy wooden door behind him, I approached the box with trembling hands. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird.
I lifted the lid.
Inside lay a thick leather-bound journal, a black USB flash drive, and an old cassette tape. Beneath them was a manila folder labeled PROJECT LAZARUS.
I opened the manila folder first. Inside were medical documents, schematics, and clinical trial records dated five years ago. As I scanned the pages, my blood turned to ice.
Nathan hadn't just built a medical technology company. Vance Medical Technologies was founded on a revolutionary, highly experimental gene-editing platform designed to cure end-stage renal failure without the need for lifelong immunosuppressants.
And the primary investor, the person who owned fifty-one percent of the holding company that funded the research, wasn't Nathan.
It was my father.
I stared at the signature on the contract. Arthur Lin. Dated eight years ago—two years after the hit-and-run accident.
My mind raced, trying to connect the impossible dots. My father was a high school chemistry teacher. Where could he possibly have gotten millions of dollars to fund a cutting-edge biotech startup?
I grabbed the USB drive, plugged it into my phone using an adapter, and opened the root directory. There was a single audio file dated three weeks before Nathan and I got married. I pressed play and put the phone to my ear.
The sound of rustling paper filled the speaker, followed by two familiar voices arguing intensely.
"You promised me she would never find out, Nathan!" my father's voice boomed through the speaker, crisp and clear.
"She was dying, Arthur!" Nathan’s voice replied, raw and emotional. "Her numbers were plummeting! The dialysis was killing her! I had to match her, I had to give her the kidney!"
"If you give her your organ, the medical team will run a deep genetic cross-match!" my father raged. "They will find the synthetic markers we used in the trial eight years ago! They will realize she wasn't sick by accident, Nathan! They will realize her kidneys failed because of the experimental treatment WE tested on her!"
I dropped the phone onto the table. The audio continued to play, echoing loudly in the small, metallic room.
"I don't care about the trial anymore, Arthur!" Nathan shouted on the recording. "I loved her then, and I love her now! I caused the car accident, yes, but you—you turned your own daughter into a lab rat to save your dying company!"
"Shut your mouth!" Arthur yelled back. "If this comes out, we both go to federal prison for the rest of our lives! You cover your tracks, Nathan. Marry her if you have to. Make sure her legal proxy belongs to you so no outside doctor can ever perform an autopsy or biopsy on that kidney without your consent!"
I slumped into the metal chair, the room spinning around me in a terrifying vortex of deceit.
The hit-and-run hadn't been an accident. My illness hadn't been a tragic coincidence. My entire life—my near-death experience, my miraculous recovery, my romance with Nathan—was a calculated, horrifying cover-up orchestrated by the two men I trusted most in the world: my father and my husband.
And my kidney? It wasn't just a donor organ. It was evidence.
Suddenly, the heavy steel door of the vault room clicked. The lock turned.
I whipped my head around as the door swung open. Standing in the threshold wasn't the bank manager.
May you like
It was Victoria Sterling, holding a sleek black taser in her hand, flanked by two men in dark suits.
"I see you found the vault, Maya," Victoria said smoothly, stepping into the room and shutting the heavy door behind her. "I was hoping we wouldn't have to do this the hard way."
