Rosa, still clutching Matthew to her chest with one hand and the kitchen knife with the other, moved toward me. She acted as a shield, placing her body between me and the husband I no longer recognized.
“They told you he died, Ms. Valerie,” Rosa hissed, her eyes darting between Spencer and the door. “Four years ago. They said the cord was wrapped. They said don’t look at the body, it will haunt you. But they took him. They took Leo.”
Leo. The name I had picked out in my dreams.
“Why?” I gasped, looking at Eleanor. “Why would you steal my first child and keep him in a cellar?”
Eleanor’s face didn’t soften. If anything, it turned to stone. “Because Leo was born with a failing heart, Valerie. A genetic defect from your side of the family. He was useless as an heir, a drain on the Montgomery legacy. But he was a perfect match for Spencer.”
I looked at Spencer. He wouldn’t meet my eyes. He was staring at the medical bag.
“Spencer has a degenerative condition,” the doctor added, his voice clinical, devoid of humanity. “He needs a series of highly specialized, compatible organ and tissue transfers to survive into his forties. We kept Leo alive, stabilized, as a… repository. A biological insurance policy.”
The room spun. My first son wasn’t a baby who had passed away; he was a ‘spare parts’ bin kept in the dark beneath our feet.
“And Matthew?” I choked out, gesturing to the infant in Rosa’s arms. “Why the ‘Donor’ tag on his bracelet?”
“Leo’s heart is failing faster than we anticipated,” Eleanor said, stepping closer, her voice dropping to a terrifyingly maternal soothe. “He won’t last another month. We need a younger, fresher source of stem cells and a partial liver transplant to bridge Spencer until we can finalize the next phase. Matthew is simply… helping his family.”
