Chapter 1 - The Extraction
I stared at the black ink drying on the official hospital birth certificate.
Luka Moretti calmly handed the medical clipboard back to the bewildered triage nurse.
My heart hammered violently against my ribs as I clutched my newborn daughter tighter against my chest.
"You have absolutely no right to do that," I whispered, my voice trembling with a mixture of fear and physical exhaustion.
Luka turned his dark, intense eyes toward me, his heavily tattooed hands resting calmly at his sides.
"Your husband did not leave this hospital to go celebrate with his mistress, Maya."
He took a slow, deliberate step closer, glancing suspiciously down the sterile green hospital hallway.
"He left to coordinate the heavily armed medical extraction team currently waiting in the basement."
I felt the blood completely drain from my face as my knees grew incredibly weak.
"What extraction team?" I demanded.
"David works in corporate finance, he has absolutely nothing to do with medical teams or extractions."
Luka shook his head, pulling a dark leather jacket off a nearby chair and gently draping it over my shivering shoulders.
"David is the ruthless CEO of a black-market genetic research firm, and you were nothing more than a wealthy incubator to him."
Suddenly, the hospital's emergency fire alarms began to shriek deafeningly throughout the entire maternity ward.
Thick, toxic gray smoke began pouring rapidly out of the ceiling ventilation ducts above our heads.
"They are flushing the floor with carbon monoxide to make it look like a tragic accident," Luka stated with chilling calmness.
He grabbed my arm gently but firmly, leading me rapidly toward the heavy emergency fire escape doors.
I looked back just in time to see three men in dark tactical gear burst through the elevator doors, holding suppressed automatic weapons.
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The lead gunman pointed his weapon directly at my sleeping baby and shouted an order that made my soul freeze entirely.
"Shoot the mother immediately, but bring me Project M-17 alive."
