Chapter 5 - The Barcode Richard stood over the groaning mercenaries, his expensive gray suit now covered in dirt, grease, and fresh blood.
He turned his intense gaze toward the trembling little girl on the floor and gently offered her his large, calloused hand.
She hesitated for a long moment before finally placing her tiny, dirty fingers into his palm.
He pulled her up safely and demanded to know why heavily armed professional killers were hunting a child in an airport basement.
The girl looked up at the towering billionaire, her serious eyes studying his face for any sign of deception.
She finally spoke, her voice surprisingly steady despite the chaotic violence that had just occurred.
She told him her name was Maya, and she explained that she knew how to fix the wheelchair because she was intimately familiar with its design.
She confessed that she possessed the exact same rare genetic heart defect that was currently slowly killing his son.
Richard felt the breath completely leave his lungs as he struggled to comprehend the magnitude of her terrifying words.
He had spent hundreds of millions of dollars secretly developing that experimental pacemaker technology strictly for Ethan.
Maya explained that a group of very bad men had kept her locked in a sterile underground facility for her entire life.
They used her small body as a living test subject to perfect the medical devices before they were ever surgically implanted into his son.
Richard shook his head in absolute denial, insisting that his medical research division was highly regulated and completely legal.
Maya reached down and slowly rolled up the frayed sleeve of her patched denim jacket.
She held her thin, bruised arm out under the harsh fluorescent lights of the baggage sorting room.
Printed directly onto her pale skin was a stark, black barcode tattoo.
Richard stumbled backward, his heart breaking into a thousand jagged pieces as he recognized the horrible mark.
It was the exact same sequence of numbers that was secretly tattooed onto the back of Ethan's neck after his supposed kidnapping.
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Before Richard could apologize for the horrors his money had unknowingly funded, a slow, mocking clap echoed through the chamber.
Colin stepped out from behind a massive sorting machine, flanked by a dozen heavily armed airport security guards who all had their weapons aimed at Richard.
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