Chapter 7 - The Whistleblower in the Library
The St. Regis Library was an old, Victorian stone building near the river, its interior silent and smelling of old paper and leather bindings.
I walked down the narrow aisles of the medical reference section on the second floor, my damp shoes squeaking softly against the polished hardwood floor. The library was nearly empty, save for a few university students studying under green desk lamps.
Standing in the shadow of a high oak bookshelf at the back of the room was a woman wearing a heavy raincoat and a headscarf.
As I approached, she turned around.
My breath hitched.
It was Dr. Elena Rostova—the senior embryologist who had performed the lab procedures at the Reston Clinic three years ago, the woman whose signature was on my original egg extraction logs.
"Dr. Rostova?" I whispered, stepping back cautiously.
"Keep your voice down, Maya," Dr. Rostova whispered urgently, her eyes darting nervously toward the stairwell. "I only have ten minutes before my flight to Canada."
"Why are you helping me?" I asked, my heart pounding. "You worked for Dr. Pendelton! You were part of the team that processed my genetic material!"
Dr. Rostova’s face twisted in shame. "I didn't know what Pendelton was doing, Maya! Three years ago, when you donated your eggs, I was told your samples were being assigned to an anonymous donor bank for low-income couples in Oregon!"
She pulled a thick, encrypted flash drive and a stack of printed laboratory logs from her raincoat pocket, pressing them into my hands.
"Six months ago, Pendelton ordered me to pull your specific genetic straws from the liquid nitrogen storage vault," Rostova explained, her voice shaking with fear. "When I ran the system match, I saw the destination order: Vance Capital Private Clinic in Chicago. I checked the donor profile and saw your name... and then I checked the recipient profile and saw Claire Vance."
She grabbed my forearms, her eyes wide with desperate terror.
"I went to Pendelton and told him it was an illegal familial transfer!" Rostova choked out. "Do you know what he told me? He showed me a file on his computer. Arthur Vance Senior didn't just buy your eggs, Maya. He has been funding an illegal, unregistered gene-editing and private surrogacy ring out of that Chicago clinic for five years!"
My jaw dropped in absolute horror. "Gene editing?"
"Mark Vance carries a rare, fatal genetic marker for Huntington's Disease," Rostova revealed, her words landing like mortar shells. "That’s why Claire couldn't use Mark's genetic material with a standard donor! Mark’s uncle’s trust fund had a strict clause: the child had to be a verified male carrying the unbroken Vance paternal line, free of the Huntington's mutation!"
Rostova pointed to the lab log in my hand.
"They didn't just want a baby, Maya. They used your healthy eggs, combined them with Mark's genetically modified sperm in an unaccredited lab, and attempted to create a 'cleared' male heir! But when the embryo developed... it was a girl. Nora."
I stared at the paperwork, my mind reeling in utter disgust and disbelief. "Nora... she was a girl... so she was useless to their trust fund?"
"Yes!" Rostova whispered fiercely. "That’s why Claire and Mark recoiled in disgust in that delivery room! They didn't just hate that you touched her! They were furious because Nora wasn't the engineered male heir they paid three million dollars to create! They were going to place Nora in an isolated estate, keep her hidden from the public, and force you into a non-disclosure agreement while they attempted a second IVF cycle in secret!"
Suddenly, the heavy double doors of the library floor burst open.
Three men in dark suits with earpieces strode into the room, their eyes scanning the aisles with cold, lethal precision.
May you like
"There she is!" one of the men shouted, pulling a radio from his coat.
"Run, Maya!" Dr. Rostova screamed, shoving me toward the emergency fire exit. "Take the flash drive to Julian Ross! It contains the entire digital archive of Arthur Vance’s illegal lab!"
