Chapter 7 - THE PRICE OF A LIFE
Victor locked the operating room doors behind them.
“Explain,” he said.
The nurse’s name was Rachel. Her hands shook so badly she could barely hold a cup of water.
“Sam has an extremely rare tissue profile,” she said. “Dr. Bell has been running illegal donor searches through the hospital database.”
“Donor searches for whom?” Sadie asked.
“A private patient.”
“Who?”
Rachel looked at Victor.
“Anthony Costello.”
Victor’s face emptied.
“My father died six years ago.”
“No,” Rachel said. “The death certificate was false.”
Sadie stared at him.
Victor took a slow step backward.
For years, the city had believed Anthony Costello died after a stroke. Victor had buried a sealed coffin and taken control of the family.
“Where is he?” Victor asked.
“Hopewell Medical Retreat. It’s a private facility outside the city.”
Sadie suddenly understood.
“Sam’s leukemia treatment wasn’t random.”
Rachel shook her head. “Dr. Bell kept delaying the therapy that could help him. He needed Sam weak enough to control but healthy enough to harvest.”
Sadie felt sick.
Every rejected appeal. Every new bill. Every loan Mick offered.
It had all been planned.
Victor punched the wall hard enough to crack the plaster.
“My father built the debt network,” he said. “Mick trapped the families. Bell selected the patients.”
“And you knew nothing?” Sadie asked.
“I knew my father was cruel. I didn’t know he was alive.”
A phone rang inside the room.
Victor answered.
Gabriel’s voice came through.
“Don’t hang up.”
“You have five seconds.”
“Your father forced me to work for him. He has my wife and daughter at Hopewell.”
Victor’s jaw tightened.
“Why should I believe you?”
“Because the third cassette isn’t evidence against Anthony. It’s a message for you.”
Sadie inserted the damaged tape into a recorder Rachel found in a supply cabinet.
Thomas Hayes’s voice filled the room.
“Victor, if you’re hearing this, Anthony discovered the marrow program. He believes blood gives him the right to take any life he needs.”
A long pause followed.
“Your mother tried to stop him.”
Victor went still.
His mother had supposedly died by suicide when he was nineteen.
Thomas continued.
“She didn’t kill herself. Anthony did.”
Victor closed his eyes.
Sadie had expected rage. What she saw was grief—the old kind, buried so deep it had hardened into bone.
The recording continued.
“There is one person Anthony can never control: the son who still remembers what mercy looks like.”
The tape ended.
Victor opened his eyes.
“Gabriel, where is Sam?”
“Being transported to Hopewell. Anthony needs the transplant before sunrise.”
“Help us enter the facility.”
“If he finds out I called, he’ll kill my family.”
Victor looked at Sadie.
Then he spoke quietly.
“If you help me save that boy, I will bring your family home.”
Gabriel gave them a route through an abandoned storm tunnel.
Before ending the call, he added one warning.
“Victor, your father knows Sadie is with you.”
“How?”
“Because someone in that room is still working for him.”
Victor slowly turned.
Rachel was gone.
May you like
The operating room door was swinging open.
And the cassette containing Thomas Hayes’s final evidence had vanished with her.
