Chapter 8 - The Price of Blood
The realization hit Mark like a physical blow. Sarah hadn't died of natural organ failure. Her sudden illness four years ago had always felt hollow, like an unanswered riddle that haunted his sleepless nights. Victoria had entered his life six months later, offering comfort, capital, and a warm hand to hold his shattered life together.
It was all an execution.
""Sarah didn't get sick, did she?"" Mark asked, his voice dropping to a whisper so low it was almost lost in the draft of the abandoned hall.
Elena kept her eyes on Lily's bandaged leg. ""My father supplies unreleased compounds to black-market syndicates. Sarah was close to patenting a synthetic platelet that would have made their blood-trafficking network obsolete. She wouldn't sell. So they poisoned her slowly. When you inherited her legacy, they targeted you.""
Mark looked down at his daughter. Lily’s breathing had steadied; the antibiotics were fighting off the fever, and her small chest rose and fell beneath his sodden suit jacket. She looked so fragile, yet she was carrying the key to an empire of blood.
""Where is the vault?"" Mark demanded.
""Third sub-level of the Vance Tower downtown,"" Elena said, packing her supplies. ""It’s biometric. They brought in a black-market genetic spoofer, using Lily’s hair and saliva samples they took from your house. But the machine takes three hours to synthesize a living DNA sequence. They started an hour ago.""
""We have two hours,"" Mark said.
""You're not going down there,"" Elena argued, grabbing his arm. ""They have forty armed mercenaries guarding the building. The police won't help you—Julian has the commissioner on his payroll. If you show your face, they'll shoot you on sight and just cut Lily's finger off to open the safe.""
""I'm not going to open the vault,"" Mark replied, his eyes turning to stone. ""I'm going to set it on fire.""
""And what about Lily?"" Elena hissed. ""You take her anywhere near that tower and she's dead!""
""You're taking Lily,"" Mark said, locking eyes with Elena. ""Take her out of the state. Get her across the border to my brother in Montana. He has a ranch off the grid. Nobody knows about him.""
""And leave you to commit suicide?""
""If I don't destroy those files, they will hunt Lily for the rest of her life,"" Mark said, his voice deadly calm. ""They will track her to the ends of the earth to get that sequence. The only way she survives is if there's nothing left to steal.""
Elena looked at the sleeping girl, then at Mark’s battered, unyielding face. She pulled a set of car keys from her pocket. ""My sedan is behind the freight depot. But you won't get inside the tower through the front door.""
She reached into her coat and pulled out an encrypted keycard. ""My old executive bypass. It gets you to the utility sub-levels. From there, you're on your own.""
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Mark took the card. He bent down, kissing Lily’s warm forehead. A single tear fell onto her cheek, but he wiped it away before it could wake her.
""Tell her Daddy kept his promise,"" he whispered.
