Chapter 17 - The Boy in the Glass Case
Daniel didn't hesitate. He pulled his sidearm and aimed it directly at the head of the nearest security contractor. “Back away from the lift. Now.”
The two mercenaries looked at each other, then at the red laser dots dancing across their chests from Marcus’s sniper team outside the hangar doors. Slowly, methodically, they raised their hands, unholstered their sidearms, and kicked them across the polished floor.
“Marcus, secure them,” Daniel commanded without turning his head.
He marched toward the hydraulic lift. The case was large, nearly five feet in length, built like a high-grade medical transport incubator, equipped with external oxygen valves and a digital pressure monitor. The glass viewing panel on top was frosted with condensation.
Daniel wiped the moisture away with his bare palm.
Inside, resting on a padded medical mattress, lay a boy. He had Leo’s dark, unruly hair, Leo’s sharp chin, and the distinctive crescent-shaped birthmark high on his left cheekbone that Daniel had seen in the mirror on his own face every morning for thirty-five years.
The boy was unconscious, a thin clear cannula delivering oxygen to his nose. A digital display on the control console read: *PENTOBARBITAL INFUSION - DOSAGE MONITORING.*
They had kept the child sedated for transit.
“You drugged him,” Daniel hissed, his knuckles turning chalk-white as he gripped the rim of the case. He turned on Evelyn with such savage fury that the woman fell back against the metal stairs, sobbing.
“I didn't! That was Victor’s medical team!” Evelyn cried, tears streaming through the mascara tracks on her cheeks. “Victor brought him from the compound in Austria three days ago. He told me the swap had to happen right after the vows. When the press was taking photos, we were going to trigger a fire alarm, switch Leo with him in the vestry, and claim Leo had an allergic reaction!”
“Why switch them?” Daniel roared, slamming his fist onto the console. “If they are identical twins, why swap one for the other?”
Evelyn looked at Daniel with wide, terrified eyes. “Because that boy in the case… he isn't just your son, Daniel. He was legally registered eight years ago under the Vance family trust in Vienna. Victor’s will makes him the sole beneficiary of *both* fortunes—yours and Victor’s. But there was a condition.”
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“What condition?”
“The inheritance clause is void,” Evelyn whispered, “if the other twin is still alive.”
