I grabbed Yates by the front of his coat before Prescott pulled me back, but Elena shouted that wasting another minute on anger could cost the twins their lives, because the donor protocol required someone carrying Genevieve’s specific genetic marker.
Then she said the sentence that changed everything: “I have that marker,” and when I stared at her, Elena explained that Genevieve had contacted her seven years earlier because the two women were maternal half-sisters who had never publicly acknowledged each other.
Genevieve’s father had maintained another relationship before his marriage, and Elena had grown up poor with a mother who demanded silence, while Genevieve discovered her existence only after finding old letters hidden among family records shortly before becoming pregnant.
The sisters secretly met, underwent testing together, and discovered they shared the unusual marker, but Genevieve had feared that revealing Elena would trigger a vicious inheritance dispute involving millions of dollars and several relatives who depended financially on the Mercer family.
None of that explained why Genevieve had died, why the report disappeared, or why Yates had ignored it, so I ordered Prescott to lock down the estate and retrieve every archived medical record, security file, phone backup, and document connected to my wife.
