Chapter 7 - Sins of the Father
""You're lying,"" Gabriel whispered, though the certainty in his voice wavered, poisoned by the sudden alignment of puzzle pieces he had spent decades trying to ignore.
The inexplicable wealth that had pulled his family back from bankruptcy when he was seven years old. The private tutors who had monitored his blood work quarterly under the guise of 'health screenings.' The absolute isolation his father had enforced upon this estate until the day he died.
""Think back, Gabriel,"" Clara pressed, stepping steadily across the shifting floor, ignoring the cracks opening beneath her designer leather shoes. ""Why do you have no memories before your eighth birthday? Why do you have a surgical scar running parallel to your thoracic spine that your mother claimed was from a childhood fall?""
Lily sobbed harder into Gabriel’s neck, the vibration of her terror grounding him just enough to prevent his mind from shattering. Toby looked between his father and Clara, his hazel eyes wide with a horrific dawning realization.
""They didn't want him,"" Clara continued, nodding toward Toby. ""The Trust never cared about Toby. Toby is just the replacement part. You are the asset that expired, Gabriel. Your cellular degradation started six months ago. That’s why your hands tremble in the morning. That’s why your peripheral vision is fading.""
Gabriel’s left hand, wrapped around Lily’s waist, tightened involuntarily. It was true. The tremors had begun in March. The specialists in Boston had found nothing on the scans, calling it idiopathic neurological fatigue.
""They don't want to kill your children, Gabriel,"" Clara said, her voice dropping into a terrifyingly soft cadence. ""They need Toby's compatible marrow to stabilize the genetic sequence your father stole to keep you alive thirty years ago. If Toby doesn't go down that tunnel, you will be dead before the winter solstice. And so will he, once the inherited flaw activates in his own blood.""
Above them, the main load-bearing beam of the mansion snapped with the sound of an artillery shell detonating. A ten-foot section of the kitchen floor caved inward, sending the heavy marble kitchen island crashing down into the basement mere yards from where Clara stood.
The floor beneath her gave way entirely. Clara shrieked as the concrete slab tilted forty-five degrees, sliding her backward toward the yawning subterranean abyss. She dropped the firearm, clawing wildly at the broken edges of the stone, her legs dangling into the illuminated void below.
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""Gabriel!"" she screamed, her polished composure disintegrating into raw, primal panic. ""Catch me! If I fall, you will never find the laboratory! You will never find the synthesis codes!""
Gabriel stood rooted, Lily and Toby held tight against his chest. For two long seconds, he watched her struggle against gravity. Then, without a word, he turned his back on her and kicked open the heavy iron-banded door of the wine cellar.
