Chapter Thirty — Seventeen Omega Children

The symbol remained on every board member’s screen.

A cradle beneath a crown.

Beneath it, the message glowed in white letters.

THANK YOU FOR CONFIRMING O-17 PUBLICLY.

For several seconds, nobody spoke.

Then the feeds began returning one by one.

Victor appeared first.

His face had changed.

The arrogance was gone.

“What the hell was that?”

I looked at him.

“For once, Victor, I genuinely do not know.”

One of the directors demanded that security disconnect the meeting.

Another asked whether Vale Dominion had been hacked.

A third wanted to know what O-17 meant.

The questions came too quickly.

Too loudly.

Exactly what Cradle wanted.

Chaos.

Ronan leaned toward me.

“End the call.”

I looked at him.

“If I leave now, Victor controls the room.”

“You have already survived the vote.”

“Not yet.”

Marcus checked the board tally.

“He is right.”

I glanced at him.

“How many?”

“Four supporting removal. Three against. Four undecided.”

Victor heard.

“This meeting is still active.”

I looked back at the screen.

“Then let us finish it.”

Ronan’s expression hardened.

“Adrian.”

I ignored him.

I had spent my entire life learning one rule better than any other.

Never surrender a room while people were still deciding who controlled it.

Victor folded his arms.

“You have admitted deceiving this board for years.”

“And you have apparently brought hacked medical records into an emergency meeting called during an active homicide investigation.”

His mouth tightened.

“I received those records anonymously.”

“Then you built a succession challenge around evidence sent by someone you cannot identify.”

One of the directors frowned.

Victor said nothing.

I continued.

“And less than five minutes later, the same unknown party hijacked this meeting.”

The room shifted.

Good.

Let them connect the dots themselves.

Another director spoke.

“Victor, did you verify the source?”

“The medical file is genuine.”

“That was not the question.”

Victor looked irritated.

“No.”

I leaned back.

“So someone handed you exactly enough truth to make you useful.”

His face darkened.

“That is absurd.”

“Is it?”

Cassian placed another document beside the laptop.

“The shell acquisitions increased during this meeting.”

Marcus checked.

His expression changed.

“Another point six percent.”

My pulse slowed.

Victor stared.

“Who is buying?”

Cassian answered.

“Cradle-linked entities.”

Silence.

I watched Victor carefully.

His shock looked genuine.

Again.

That mattered.

If Cradle had used him, then they wanted more than my removal.

They wanted the board destabilized.

Maybe the company itself.

My father finally spoke.

“We adjourn.”

Victor looked at him.

“You cannot simply—”

“I am chairman.”

His voice cut through the room.

“This meeting is suspended pending investigation into external interference, unauthorized access to confidential medical records, and potential market manipulation.”

One director nodded immediately.

Then another.

Victor’s face tightened.

“The succession issue remains.”

My father looked directly into the camera.

“So does your incompetence.”

The screen went silent.

For one brief second, I almost smiled.

Then the meeting disconnected.

Marcus closed the laptop.

The room became quiet.

Too quiet.

Ronan looked at me.

“You nearly turned an exposure disaster into a board victory.”

“Nearly.”

Cassian nodded.

“Not bad.”

I looked at him.

“I was not performing for you.”

“No. That is why it was impressive.”

I ignored him.

My father remained connected through a private channel.

His face looked older now.

Not physically.

Something in him had finally stopped pretending that he could contain what was happening.

“Theodore,” Ronan said.

My father looked at him.

“You said Phase Two begins with the board.”

“Yes.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know.”

Cassian laughed softly.

My father’s expression hardened.

“You find something funny?”

“You have used ‘I don’t know’ more tonight than most chairmen use it in a lifetime.”

Theodore ignored him.

I leaned closer to the screen.

“Daniel Kerr is alive.”

“Yes.”

“You knew?”

“No.”

“Do not lie to me again.”

His jaw tightened.

“I believed he was dead.”

“Believed?”

“I saw a body.”

Ronan looked at him.

“And never confirmed it?”

“The body was burned.”

That changed the room.

Cassian’s expression sharpened.

“Convenient.”

My father looked away.

I asked, “Who identified him?”

Silence.

Then:

“Cradle.”

Of course.

Every path returned there.

Before I could respond, Marcus’s laptop chimed again.

A file transfer request.

Unknown sender.

Ronan immediately said, “Do not open it.”

I looked at the subject line.

O-SERIES SURVIVAL INDEX

Something inside me tightened.

Elias.

O-11.

The missing children.

I looked at Marcus.

“Sandbox it.”

He nodded and moved the file onto an isolated machine.

Ronan stared at me.

“You understand this may be bait.”

“Yes.”

“And you are opening it anyway.”

“Yes.”

His jaw tightened.

“Excellent.”

The file loaded.

A list appeared.

Numbers.

Names.

Dates of birth.

Designation.

Status.

I stopped breathing.

O-01.

O-02.

O-03.

Down the page.

Seventeen entries.

Seventeen Omega subjects.

Not all children.

Some were adults when enrolled.

Some were teenagers.

Others had been selected before birth.

Marcus whispered, “This is the original sequence.”

I scrolled slowly.

O-01.

Helena.

My mother’s sister.

Status: FAILED / MISSING

O-02.

Male.

Status: DECEASED

O-03.

Female.

Status: INFERTILITY INDUCED

O-04.

Male.

Status: TRANSFERRED

My stomach turned.

Each entry read like inventory.

Success.

Failure.

Discarded.

Transferred.

Ronan stood behind me.

“How many survived?”

Marcus scanned.

“Depends what they mean by survived.”

I looked down.

O-11.

Elias.

Status: ESCAPED

My pulse changed.

He had told the truth.

Then O-12.

Status: DECEASED

O-13.

UNKNOWN

O-14.

INFERTILITY INDUCED

O-15.

DECEASED

O-16.

I froze.

There was no name.

Only:

MALE OMEGA — LIVE BIRTH — TRANSFERRED

My chest tightened.

Lucian.

It had to be.

Then:

O-17.

My name.

ADRIAN VALE

Status:

VIABLE / PRIMARY SUCCESSION SUBJECT

Below it:

REPRODUCTIVE CAPACITY PRESERVED

I looked away for one second.

Just one.

Then forced myself to continue.

There was another section beneath the original list.

SECONDARY SEQUENCE — AUTHORIZED

Ronan stepped closer.

“What is that?”

Marcus scrolled.

More subject numbers.

O-18 through O-34.

My stomach dropped.

“I thought O-18 was supposed to be my child.”

My father went completely still on the screen.

Cassian noticed.

“What?”

Theodore said nothing.

I looked at him.

“Dad.”

His face had gone pale.

“The numbers were reused.”

Ronan frowned.

“For what?”

My father swallowed.

“The first O-18 failed before birth.”

My blood went cold.

“So the child my mother referred to would not literally be the eighteenth Omega.”

“No.”

“Then why call the next child O-18?”

“Because Cradle resets sequence numbering when a primary line is activated.”

I stared at him.

That was somehow worse.

They were not numbering people.

They were numbering projects.

Marcus opened another page.

“Look.”

A diagram appeared.

Family trees.

Vale.

Ashcroft.

Other names I recognized from politics, finance, old industry dynasties.

Lines connected Alpha bloodlines to Omega bloodlines.

Breeding predictions.

Inheritance outcomes.

Compatibility percentages.

Cassian moved closer.

“This is not seventeen children.”

“No,” Ronan said quietly.

“It is a network.”

Marcus zoomed out.

The diagram expanded.

Dozens of families.

Hundreds of names.

Generation after generation.

My father whispered, “That is what Cradle became.”

I stared at the screen.

“What did it begin as?”

Theodore looked at me.

“A fertility program.”

“And then?”

“Power discovered genetics.”

The sentence landed heavily.

Ronan’s expression hardened.

“So families began engineering heirs.”

“Yes.”

“Not just children,” I said.

My father shook his head.

“Succession.”

Companies.

Titles.

Political seats.

Family empires.

Cradle had not been protecting bloodlines.

It had been protecting power.

My phone vibrated.

Unknown number.

Of course.

I opened it.

One photograph.

A room.

Seventeen children standing in two rows.

Some older.

Some younger.

All wearing white.

Numbers pinned to their clothing.

My breath stopped.

Near the center stood a teenage boy with gray eyes.

Lucian.

And beside him—

I stared.

No.

Ronan leaned closer.

“What?”

I enlarged the image.

Another boy stood beside Lucian.

Dark hair.

Ashcroft eyes.

Maybe sixteen.

The resemblance to Ronan was unmistakable.

Cassian’s face changed.

“That is impossible.”

Ronan stared at the photograph.

“Who is he?”

My father went completely still.

I looked at him.

“You know.”

He said nothing.

“Who is he?”

Theodore closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, there was defeat in his face.

“That boy was Ronan’s older brother.”

Ronan stopped breathing.

“I do not have an older brother.”

My father looked at him.

“You did.”

Silence.

Ronan’s face emptied.

“What happened to him?”

Theodore’s voice dropped.

“He was selected as the original A-04.”

My blood went cold.

Ronan stared at the photograph.

Then the final message arrived.

A-04 WAS NEVER RONAN ASHCROFT.

A second line followed.

HE WAS THE REPLACEMENT TOO.