Chapter 13 - THE CHILD E-4 WAS MEANT TO CREATELydia underwent emergency surgery under police guard.
Before losing consciousness, she gave Dana a four-digit vault code.
The old fertility vault opened.
Inside were hundreds of empty storage chambers and one active cryogenic unit labeled E-4.
But the container was empty.
A paper ledger lay beneath it.
The handwriting belonged to Isabella.
E-4 is not a single embryo. It is an identity pathway.
E-4 referred to a group of embryos created from ovarian tissue taken from two adolescent girls under the same legal name.
Evelyn.
Eva.
Vale’s institute combined their samples in one confidential account, making future chain-of-custody almost impossible to separate.
Some eggs belonged to Evelyn.
Some to Eva.
The paternal samples varied.
The system could produce a child whose legal mother appeared to be Evelyn even when the genetic mother was Eva—or the reverse.
Isabella discovered the program after Evelyn’s false appendectomy.
She tried to close it.
Instead of telling Vittorio, she negotiated privately with Vale’s father to protect both girls.
Her silence allowed the archive to survive.
Vittorio looked at the ledger.
“My wife thought secrecy could contain it.”
Nathan answered, “Secrecy became its oxygen.”
Grant listened from the monitored room.
He demanded immunity in exchange for identifying Eva.
Dana made no promise.
Grant revealed that a woman contacted him one year earlier using Isabella’s tablet. She knew about B-19, E-4, and the trust clause.
She told him Evelyn’s marriage had blocked “the rightful daughter” from the DeLuca inheritance.
Grant believed the caller was Bianca.
She offered him access to B-19 if he would arrange a pregnancy inside Evelyn and create the medical incapacity needed to open the trust.
“You agreed to paralyze your wife for a stranger?” Nathan asked.
“I agreed to sedation.”
“You keep repeating that as though it restores morality.”
Grant’s face hardened.
The caller required Celeste’s involvement because Celeste’s fertility records provided a believable alternate claim. Grant manipulated her into believing the embryo was hers.
Dr. Vale falsified the medical chain.
Lydia attempted to replace B-19 with E-4 after discovering the conspiracy.
But another person intercepted the carrier.
No one knew which embryo ultimately entered Evelyn.
The newborn could be:
Evelyn and Grant’s intended child.
Bianca and Matthew’s B-19 child.
Isabella and Vittorio’s I-7 child.
Eva’s E-4 child.
Or a genetic combination hidden under one of those identities.
The final DNA could resolve some questions, but historical profiles might themselves be false.
Evelyn typed:
WHO CONTACTED GRANT?
Grant looked toward the neonatal room.
“She called herself Eva DeLuca.”
“Where is she?” Vittorio asked.
Grant smiled faintly.
“She said she lived inside your family before Evelyn was born.”
Security alarms sounded in the secured corridor.
A nurse entered the neonatal room using Dana’s badge.
Dana stood beside Evelyn.
The badge had been cloned.
The woman wore a surgical mask and carried an empty infant transport carrier.
Security reached the door seconds later.
The intruder had already locked it from inside.
Through the glass, she approached the newborn.
Evelyn forced air into her recovering lungs.
“No!”
It was the first sound she had made since surgery.
The masked woman stopped.
She turned toward Evelyn through the glass.
Then she removed the mask.
Her face resembled Evelyn’s closely enough to silence everyone.
Older around the eyes.
A scar beneath the jaw.
But unmistakably connected.
She lifted the newborn carefully and held the hospital bracelet toward the camera.
“E-4 belongs to me,” she said.
Vittorio moved toward the locked door.
“Eva?”
The woman looked at him.
May you like
“You chose the wrong daughter.”
👉 Eva had entered the neonatal room and claimed the embryo code—but she had not yet proved whether the newborn was genetically hers.
