Chapter 10 - Olivia BellFederal agents contacted the Boston treatment center.
The director claimed Olivia Bell did not exist.
Room Zero provided insurance records, medication logs, and security codes proving otherwise.
When Massachusetts officers entered the facility, Olivia’s room was empty.
A nurse reported that a man identifying himself as the child’s biological father presented a sealed Tennessee custody order.
Judge Bell signed it.
Preston left with Olivia forty-three minutes earlier.
The girl resisted.
Staff sedated her.
The facility accepted the order without contacting Rebecca because its records listed the child’s mother as deceased.
Name:
Rachel Hale.
Rebecca looked toward Rachel Wynn.
DNA results had not yet returned, but their physical resemblance and missing histories made denial difficult.
If Rachel had carried Olivia as a teenager, she may have been drugged, manipulated, or never told the pregnancy resulted in a living child.
Rachel sat down.
“I have a scar.”
She had always believed the lower-abdominal scar came from surgery after her highway accident.
It could have come from a cesarean delivery.
Her adoption records began four months after Sophie’s birth.
Mallory Pierce signed the psychological clearance stating Rachel had no recoverable family memories and should receive a new identity.
Preston’s father had taken a traumatized sixteen-year-old, used her as a gestational carrier, erased the birth, and placed her elsewhere.
Rachel had spent her adult life helping children escape systems modeled on what happened to her.
Rebecca touched her hand.
“We’ll confirm everything independently.”
Rachel nodded.
She refused to let hope become another tool used against them.
Preston’s vehicle was detected heading south from Boston.
He called Rebecca from Olivia’s phone.
A girl’s frightened breathing sounded behind him.
“You opened Room Zero,” Preston said.
“You hurt Sophie to get inside.”
“You never understood what my father built.”
“I understand enough.”
“Arthur created a system that protected children from unstable mothers.”
“He created unstable families and studied what happened.”
“You were always going to leave me.”
“I left because you frightened our daughter.”
“You taught her to fear me.”
“The phone recorded you teaching her to fall.”
Preston’s voice sharpened.
“Bring Sophie to the old Hale estate.”
“No.”
“Then Olivia returns to the institution.”
“You don’t control her.”
“I hold the court order.”
“You hold a girl you’ve never raised because you want her trust.”
“She is my daughter.”
“Biologically?”
Preston went silent.
Rebecca understood.
The embryos had been created during fertility treatment using her egg and Preston’s sample.
But Continuity’s records were built on substitution.
He might not know whether he fathered either child.
The independent laboratory reopened Sophie’s neonatal DNA file.
The paternal markers did not match Preston.
Someone had replaced or mislabeled the sample years earlier.
Rebecca requested a fresh comparison.
Preston refused to provide DNA voluntarily.
But his medical records from a recent surgery contained a preserved sample.
Testing excluded him as Sophie’s biological father.
The result did not change the twelve years during which he acted as her father.
It did change his belief that blood entitled him to control both girls.
The embryo records named the biological father:
Dr. Arthur Hale.
Preston’s father had used his own genetic material.
Sophie and Olivia were not Preston’s biological daughters.
They were his half-sisters.
Arthur built a trust requiring their shared guardian, then raised Preston to believe obtaining them would complete his inheritance.
Preston had abused two children to secure money their biological father placed beyond his reach.
Rebecca told him the result.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then Olivia screamed in the background.
The call ended.
A traffic camera showed Preston turning toward the Hale estate in Connecticut rather than Tennessee.
He was going back to the property where Arthur began the study.
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And Olivia was no longer visible in the passenger seat.
👉 Preston discovered the girls were his sisters, not his daughters—and immediately changed course toward the estate where their biological father built Continuity.
