Chapter 6 - The Confession
“You really should have stayed on the highway heading south, darling,” Ryan said, his voice dripping with a sickening, condescending warmth as he stepped further into the room, closing the distance between us. “It would have saved us all a lot of messy paperwork.”
I kept my hand firmly closed around the USB drive in my coat pocket, my pulse hammering in my ears. “You sold our son, Ryan. To your mother’s experimental medical syndicate for 1.7 million dollars. How did you even look at me across the breakfast table?”
Ryan let out a soft, dismissive chuckle, shaking his head as if I were a child failing to understand basic arithmetic.
“Sold him? Such a crude, melodramatic word, Mariana. I didn't sell him. I leveraged his unique genetic resilience profile for the greater good of human evolution—and, incidentally, secured Series B funding for Aegis Health when our primary investors pulled out.”
“He is a baby!” I screamed, the rage finally overriding my terror. “He’s one year old!”
“And he carries the rare cellular mutation required to stabilize synthetic neural regeneration vectors,” Ryan retorted, his eyes flashing with fanaticism. “My mother’s foundation has spent twenty years trying to cure neurodegenerative diseases. Leo’s cord blood markers and cellular turnover rates make him the ideal candidate for Phase 1 trials. A few minor extractions, some developmental monitoring, and we change medicine forever. And we become multi-billionaires in the process. Everyone wins.”
“Except Leo,” I spat back.
“Leo won't even remember it,” Ryan said smoothly, raising the pistol slightly, lining up his sight with ruthless precision. “Just like you won't remember any of this once the police report is filed tomorrow morning. A tragic home invasion on the coast. A grieving father finding his wife and child targeted by unknown assailants. The narrative writes itself, Mariana.”
He took another step closer, his finger tightening slightly on the trigger.
“I’m sorry it had to end this way,” Ryan whispered, his face devoid of human emotion. “You were a wonderful ornament for the company’s launch parties. Truly, you were.”
He raised the barrel.
I didn't cower. Instead, I reached into my coat pocket, pulled out the encrypted satellite phone I had just disconnected from the dock, and held it up directly in front of me.
“You might want to check the broadcast settings, Ryan,” I said, my voice dead steady.
Ryan frowned, pausing mid-stride. “What are you talking about?”
“The moment I plugged the data siphon into this phone,” I said, locking eyes with him, “Benny mirrored your master communications relay straight to the federal server database of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in downtown Los Angeles. Every wire transfer receipt, every encrypted text between you and Beatrice detailing the child abduction scheme, and this live audio confession are currently sitting on the desk of the Assistant U.S. Attorney.”
Ryan’s face drained of color in a single microsecond. The mask of calm corporate visionary shattered, revealing the panicked, cornered fraud underneath.
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“You lying bitch—” he hissed, lunging forward.
Before he could cross the room, the heavy glass sliding door behind him exploded inward in a deafening crash of shattering safety glass.
