Chapter 4 - Elena

Elias could not speak.

Mateo moved closer.

"You know her?"

Elias held up the phone.

"That's my daughter."

Ruby's face changed.

"No."

"Her name is Elena Vance."

Ruby whispered, "At Haven she was Elena Marrow."

"Marrow?"

"That was the name on her badge."

Elias stared again at the photograph.

Same eyes.

Same scar beside the left eyebrow from a bicycle accident at age nine.

It was Elena.

"Did she have children?"

Mateo nodded.

"Us."

Elias looked at him.

The world tilted.

"What did you say?"

"She was our mom."

Elias laughed once.

Not because it was funny.

Because the alternative was falling apart.

"My daughter had no children."

Ruby's jaw tightened.

"She had four."

Elias looked at Grace.

Then Mateo.

Then Ruby.

Then Caleb.

His voice turned rough.

"Who is your father?"

"We don't know."

"Elena never told you?"

"She said it wasn't safe."

Elias covered his mouth.

Mateo whispered, "Grandpa?"

Elias looked at him.

That word broke something.

He rolled away.

"No."

Ruby stood.

"Don't."

"I need air."

"We're fifteen floors underground."

"Then I need silence."

He stopped beside the dark window.

"Your chief made one call before I locked him down."

"To who?"

"Vance Biomedical."

Elias froze.

His own company.

Elena had once worked in its regenerative medicine division.

Before she died.

Frank continued.

"Someone there sent the order to retrieve G-17."

Ruby whispered, "I told you rich people buy everything."

Elias turned.

"My company doesn't traffic children."

"Maybe you don't."

The words cut.

Frank handed Elias a tablet.

A project file had been remotely deleted from a secure server minutes ago.

One title remained in the audit log.

PROJECT LAZARUS.

Elias stared.

He knew the name.

He had authorized its funding eight years earlier.

A spinal-regeneration program.

The same program that failed before the accident that put him in a wheelchair.

And now a child touched his leg and made it move.

Elias looked at Grace.

"What did we do?"

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Then an alarm sounded.

Someone was cutting power to the safe floor from inside Vance Tower.