Chapter 6 - The Diagnosis
The armored Maybach tore down the highway at a hundred miles an hour, flanked by two black SUVs full of Vance’s security personnel.
Vance had completely bypassed normal emergency services, calling his private medical facility to prepare an elite pediatric trauma team.
Inside the car, Maddie was sobbing uncontrollably, holding Maya’s tiny, lifeless body against her chest.
Vance sat beside her, his hands covered in his daughter’s blood, paralyzed by a fear he had never known existed.
When they arrived at the hidden, state-of-the-art clinic, doctors swarmed the vehicle and rushed Maya into an emergency surgical bay.
For four agonizing hours, Vance and Maddie sat in a sterile waiting room without speaking a single word.
Vance wanted to hold her hand, to offer comfort, but he knew he was the architect of all her suffering.
Finally, the heavy double doors pushed open, and Dr. Aris, the chief of pediatric cardiology, walked toward them with a grim expression.
The doctor announced that Maya had been stabilized, but her condition was absolutely critical.
Maddie leaped to her feet, tears streaming down her face as she begged to know what was wrong with her baby.
Dr. Aris explained that Maya’s heart was failing due to a highly aggressive, exceedingly rare genetic mutation.
The mutation caused the walls of her heart to violently degenerate under physical stress.
The doctor handed Vance a thick medical file, pointing to a specific genetic sequence highlighted on the page.
Dr. Aris stated that this specific mutation was hereditary, passed down only through a highly specific bloodline.
Vance stared at the paperwork, his vision blurring as the reality of the situation crushed his soul.
It was the exact same genetic heart defect that had killed Vance’s own mother thirty years ago.
This irrefutable medical evidence instantly proved to the world, and to Grant Ellison, that Vance was the biological father.
But the horrific irony of the victory brought Vance to his knees right there in the waiting room.
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His DNA had finally secured his right to claim his daughter.
But the doctor quietly added that without an immediate, perfectly matched bone marrow transplant, his daughter would be dead in less than three months.
