Chapter 5 - THE VANISHED RECORD
(Word count: ~1,520 words)
The room spun violently on its axis.
I stared at Doc, my brain completely refusing to process the words coming out of his mouth.
“Say that again,” I whispered, my voice hollow and dangerous.
“He’s your son, Andrew,” Doc said, turning the silver machine around so I could read the bold green text glowing on the small digital screen: PARENT-CHILD MATCH CONFIRMED: 99.98%.
I turned slowly to look at Ethan.
The eight-year-old boy was staring back at me, his wide dark eyes reflecting the room’s harsh fluorescent lights.
My son.
My biological child.
Eight years ago, Sarah had given birth to my son—the very child we were told we could never naturally conceive. And for eight years, I had walked this earth completely oblivious to his existence, believing my wife and I were alone in our grief, while my boy was locked away in a private facility run by a corrupt corporate monster.
“How?” Marcus whispered, leaning heavily against the armory table, his eyes wide with shock. “How could Sarah hide a whole pregnancy and a baby from you, Andrew? You were her husband!”
I dropped to both knees in front of Ethan, taking his small, cold hands into my massive, scarred palms. My eyes welled up with hot, stinging tears that I hadn't allowed myself to shed since Sarah’s funeral.
“Ethan...” I choked out, my voice thick with emotion. “Do you know who I am?”
Ethan nodded slowly, a single tear rolling down his soft cheek. “Nurse Martha said... she said you were my real dad. But she said bad men were watching you, and if they found out I was alive, they would kill you and take the club away. So Sarah kept me hidden to keep us all safe.”
Before I could pull my son into my arms, my heavy cell phone vibrated violently in my vest pocket.
I pulled it out with trembling fingers and answered. “Vance. Tell me you have something.”
“Andrew, listen to me very carefully,” Vance’s urgent, tense voice came through the speaker. “I just breached Sterling’s private medical databases in the Bahamas. What I’m looking at right now is monstrous.”
“Spill it,” I commanded, standing up, keeping my hand firmly on Ethan’s shoulder.
“Eight years ago, Sarah was working as a senior social worker for Cook County,” Vance explained quickly. “She uncovered a illegal private surrogacy and child-trafficking ring operating out of a private wing at St. Jude’s Annex, bankrolled entirely by Richard Sterling. Sterling’s firm was using high-profile medical facilities to produce and sell children to wealthy overseas buyers.”
My blood ran like liquid ice through my veins. “Go on.”
“Sarah found out that a woman admitted under a fake name was carrying a baby,” Vance continued, his keyboard clacking rapidly in the background. “When the baby was born, Sarah forged the hospital birth certificate to save the infant from being shipped out of the country. But here’s the kicker, Andrew... Sarah didn't just forge the document to rescue a random kid. The biological egg and sperm samples used in that illegal clinic’s trial belonged to you and Sarah.”
I gasped, my chest tightening so hard I could barely breathe.
Seven years before she died, Sarah and I had visited a private fertility clinic in Chicago, donating genetic samples for an IVF trial that the clinic later claimed had failed due to non-viable embryos.
They hadn't failed.
The corrupt clinic had stolen our viable embryos and transferred them into a surrogate mother inside Sterling’s illegal ring. Sarah had discovered the truth while investigating St. Jude’s Annex, realized the baby being born was our biological child, and stole him back from Sterling’s grips before he could be sold away forever.
“Sarah couldn't bring him home to you immediately,” Vance said quietly over the phone. “Sterling knew who you were. He threatened to use his police connections to frame you for federal crimes and destroy the Black Ravens if Sarah didn't return the baby. So Sarah made a deal with the devil. She agreed to keep Ethan hidden at her sister’s cabin, paying off a nurse named Martha to protect him, while she spent years silently building a federal corruption case against Sterling to put him away forever.”
“And fifteen months ago...” my voice cracked completely. “The car crash.”
Vance went dead silent on the line for three terrifying seconds.
“Andrew...” Vance whispered softly. “I just checked the vehicle telemetry report from the night Sarah died on the Joliet highway. Her brake lines weren't worn out from bad weather.”
My knuckles turned white around the phone casing. “They were cut.”
“Sterling sabotaged her car,” Vance confirmed, his tone dark with grim realization. “He killed Sarah to stop her from delivering her evidence file to the FBI. And the moment she was dead, Sterling’s men raided the cabin in Door County, grabbed Ethan, and locked him inside St. Jude’s Annex to keep him silenced forever.”
I hung up the phone slowly.
The room around me felt completely still. The grief, the confusion, the lingering ghost of my wife’s death—all of it merged into a single, terrifying wave of absolute, unadulterated vengeance.
I looked at Marcus, my eyes glowing with a dark, lethal promise.
“Call the entire charter,” I ordered, my voice dropping into a low, terrifying growl. “Every patch-holder, every prospect, every brother from Milwaukee to Joliet. Tell them the President’s son has been found.”
Marcus’s eyes widened as a fierce, wild grin spread across his face. “And what are we doing, Boss?”
May you like
I reached down and pulled my biological son into my arms, lifting Ethan gently against my chest, feeling his small heart beating against my leather vest.
“We’re going to war,” I said.
