Chapter Eight - The blood match

Spencer’s POV

He crossed the room without hurry and placed the album in my hands.

I opened it.

The first page held a photograph of a newborn wrapped in a pink blanket, nestled against the woman who now sat in the wheelchair. She had been younger then. Healthier. Her face was soft with something I had never seen on Ruby.

I turned the page.

A toddler taking her first unsteady steps. The same woman kneeling behind her, arms open, waiting to catch her if she fell.

Another page.

Birthday candles. A school uniform. A beach, wet hair sticking to her cheeks, mouth open in laughter.

Page after page.

Year after year.

This woman and the girl who wore my wife’s face.

I kept turning. The silence in the apartment stretched. The only sounds were the soft scrape of paper and the uneven breathing of the woman in the wheelchair.

I stopped on one photograph and stared at it longer than necessary.

“What is this?”

My voice came out low. Flat.

Chloe made a sound that might have been a laugh. It broke in the middle.

“Do you want more proof?” she asked. Her voice was rough, scraped raw. “Birth certificates. Medical records. I can show you exactly who I am and exactly how I am not your wife. If you’re interested.”

I didn’t answer.

I kept looking at the photographs.

The resemblance was absolute. Same eyes. Same mouth. Same tilt of the head when she smiled. Everything that should have belonged only to Ruby was here, documented in someone else’s life.

I closed the album slowly and set it on the nearest table.

Then I looked at her.

Really looked.

She stood near the wheelchair, one hand still resting on her mother’s arm. Her clothes were the same ones she had worn when my men took her—creased, slightly torn at the sleeve. There was a smear of something dark near her wrist that might have been dried blood or dirt. Her hair had come loose in places. Shadows sat under her eyes like bruises.

She looked exhausted.

She also looked like she wanted to put a knife in my throat.

“Who are you?” I asked.

She held my gaze without blinking. The hate in her eyes was clean. Uncomplicated.

“My name is Chloe Graham.” The words came out steady, but her fingers tightened on her mother’s sleeve. “I met your wife at the mall. She was running—from you, I assume. We both noticed we looked the same. Then she ran.”

She paused. Drew a breath that seemed to cost her.

“The next thing I knew, your men grabbed me. Threw me in a car. Locked me in your house.” Her voice thinned for a second, then hardened again. “I’m not Ruby. I never was.”

The older woman in the wheelchair made a small, broken sound. Her hand lifted weakly toward her daughter. Chloe turned away from me without asking permission and knelt beside the chair. She took the trembling hand in both of hers and pressed it against her cheek.

I watched the way her shoulders curved inward, as if she were trying to make herself smaller around the only person in the room who mattered to her.

I felt nothing that needed naming.

Ruby was gone. The only confirmed match for Olivia had vanished. That was the only information that counted.

“Get it now?”

Her voice cut across the quiet. Sharp. Bitter.

She rose slowly, still holding her mother’s hand. When she looked at me again, the exhaustion was still there, but the irritation burned hotter.

“Get it now?” she repeated. “That’s what I’ve been saying this entire time. I am not Ruby. I can never be Ruby.”

I took one step closer. Then another.

“That’s irrelevant.”

A short, humourless sound left her throat. “Irrelevant? After everything—”

“Your full name.”

She stopped. Her brows drew together.

“What?”

“Your name,” I said. “Full name.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Chloe Graham.”

“Mother’s name.”

“Marilyn Graham.”

“Place of birth.”

“Cedar Springs, Ohio.”

“Schools.”

“Lincoln Elementary. Roosevelt Middle. Cedar Springs High.”

“Father.”

“Dead.”

Each answer came quickly. Precisely. No hesitation. No search for details. She wasn’t inventing anything.

I studied the way her mouth moved when she spoke. The way her chin stayed lifted even though her body still trembled faintly from the aftershock of the last hours. The face was identical to Ruby’s in every measurable way. The person behind it was not.

She was looking at me the way someone looks at a thing they have decided to hate for the rest of their life.

I let the silence settle for a moment longer than was comfortable.

“What’s your blood type?”

Her head snapped up. “Excuse me?”

“Your blood type,” I repeated, slower this time. “What is it?”

She stared at me as if I had asked for something obscene. “I’m not telling you that.”

I waited.

She shook her head once, sharp. “No. You don’t get to ask me that. You don’t get to ask me anything else. You’ve already—”

“Answer the question.”

“I said no.”

The word hung between us, stubborn and thin.

I took another step. Close enough that she had to tilt her chin to keep meeting my eyes. Close enough that I could see the pulse jumping in her throat.

“I will not ask again.”

She opened her mouth, clearly ready to refuse a second time.

I raised my voice.

“What is your fucking blood type?”

The sound cracked through the small apartment like a whip. The woman in the wheelchair flinched hard in her seat. Chloe’s entire body jerked. Her shoulders drew up. For a split second the hate in her eyes was overtaken by something closer to raw fear.

She swallowed.

When she spoke, the words came out quieter. Reluctant. Forced through clenched teeth.

“O negative.”

The same as Ruby.

The same as Olivia.

I felt the information settle into place with the cold precision of a lock turning.

Identical face. Identical blood.

Twins.

It was the only explanation that made sense. Separated somehow. One raised in this cramped apartment with a broken mother. The other raised as a Mayfield.

Ruby had been the only confirmed donor. Now she was gone. But this woman—this Chloe—carried the same rare type in her veins. If the rest of the markers matched, she could keep Olivia alive.

I needed to know.

I needed her tested.

And I needed her under my roof while it happened.

“You’re coming with me,” I said.

She blinked, as if she hadn’t heard correctly. Then the hate returned, brighter than before.

“No, I'm not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“Over my dead body.”

The words left her mouth like a challenge. Her chin was still lifted. Her hands had curled into fists at her sides. She looked ready to fight even though she could barely stand without swaying.

I thought of Olivia.

Of the machines that kept her breathing. Of the numbers that kept dropping. Of the doctors who had already started using the word “soon.”

Ruby had been her only chance.

Now this woman might be the only chance left.

I would not let Olivia die.

Not while a possible match stood in front of me refusing. Never.

“You don’t have a choice,” I said.

The words were quiet, but final.

I looked at Chloe the way I looked at any obstacle that needed removal.

“You said over your dead body.” My voice stayed even. Almost polite. “That can be arranged.”

Her eyes widened.

I simply held the gun, letting her see the weight of it, the ease with which it sat in my hand. The metal was dark and matte under the weak lamp light. My finger rested along the side of the trigger guard, not yet on it.

For a moment neither of us moved.

Then I lifted my arm in one smooth motion and pointed the barrel at the ceiling.

The shot cracked through the small apartment like a physical blow.

The sound was sharp, violent, and final. It slammed against the thin walls and came back twice as loud. A chunk of plaster exploded outward above our heads. White dust and larger fragments rained down in a sudden cloud, settling on my shoulders, on the floor, on the arm of the wheelchair.

The woman in the chair cried out—a thin, broken sound that cracked in the middle.

Chloe’s body jerked hard. Her shoulder slammed into the doorframe with a dull thud. For a split second, pure shock flooded her face. Her eyes—those same eyes that had been burning with hate only moments before—went wide and glassy. The pupils blew open. Terror flickered there, raw and unguarded, before the anger surged back in to cover it. Her mouth opened on a silent gasp. Her chest heaved once, twice, as if the air had been knocked clean out of her lungs.

She stayed on her feet, spine pressed against the wood, fingers white where they gripped the doorframe. Dust clung to her hair and the front of her shirt. Her breath came short and sharp through her teeth, and each inhale edged with the sound of someone fighting not to make a sound.

I lowered the barrel to the side and looked at her across the small distance between us.

“You may not be Ruby,” I said, voice flat. “But you are coming with me.”