Chapter 3 - The Web Unravels
The interrogation room was cold, lit by a harsh overhead glare that cast deep shadows across Thomas’s face. Through the one-way mirror, I watched my husband sit with his head bowed, his tailored suit rumpled and sweat beading on his forehead. Sitting across from him was Detective Vance and a federal prosecutor who had just flown in from Washington.
"Let's go over it one more time, Thomas," Vance's voice echoed faintly through the hidden audio speaker in the observation room. "A multi-million-dollar grant from a black-list biomedical syndicate, a pre-natal tracking schedule, and your own mother acting as the primary extraction technician on your own flesh and blood. You realize this isn't just child abuse, right? This is human trafficking conspiracy and corporate conspiracy on a federal level."
Thomas shook his head frantically, his hands cuffed to the steel bolt in the center of the table. "You don't understand the pressure I was under! The firm... they threatened everything. My career, my debts from the startup failure—they said if I didn't provide a candidate with the specific genetic markers matching my family line, they would strip everything away. Evelyn volunteered. She said she could handle the extraction phase discreetly at home!"
"Your own son!" Vance slammed his hand on the table, the sharp crack making me jump even behind the glass. "You traded your newborn baby like a lab rat for corporate payout!"
"I thought it would be controlled!" Thomas sobbed, his composure finally shattering completely. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he clutched his head in his cuffed hands. "Evelyn promised it wouldn't leave permanent damage! She said modern gene-therapy requires aggressive baseline stimulation to map the cellular defensive triggers! I didn't want him hurt, I just wanted our debts paid, I wanted us to be secure..."
"Greedy, pathetic coward," I muttered to myself, pressing my palms against the cool glass of the mirror.
Suddenly, the door to the observation room swung open. It was my sister, Elena, who had driven through the night across state lines the moment she heard the news. Without saying a word, she wrapped her arms tightly around me, holding me as the long-suppressed tremors finally wracked my body.
"He's finished, Sarah," Elena whispered fiercely into my hair. "The feds have already frozen all of Thomas and Evelyn's accounts. That biotech firm is being raided right this second. They are going away for the rest of their lives. Neither of them will ever come near you or Leo again."
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"I want total custody," I said, my voice deadpan, devoid of all emotion except a fierce, unbreakable resolve. "I want his parental rights terminated before the sun sets today. I want every trace of Thomas Miller scrubbed from my son's birth certificate."
"It's already being drawn up," Elena answered, handing me a fresh cup of water. "Your lawyer is a shark. Thomas signed his own death warrant the moment he stepped into that house and looked for the notebook instead of his family."
