Chapter 6 - The Bloodline’s PriceBy 8:00 PM, my private study—a mahogany-paneled room lined with first-edition leather-bound books and global art pieces—had been transformed into a high-tech surgical staging area.
Bright halogen surgical lights hung from the antique ceiling beams, casting harsh white beams across the Persian rug where a mobile extraction cot stood surrounded by IV poles, centrifuge units, and automated cell separators.
I lay flat on my back on the leather examination table, my left shirt sleeve rolled up past my shoulder, staring up at the intricate plaster molding on the ceiling.
Dr. Harrison Vance stood beside me, wearing full green scrubs, holding a sterile needle attached to a thick plastic collection line.
“You’re sure about this, cousin?” Harrison asked quietly, his eyes searching my face. “It’s going to hurt like hell, and local anesthesia is minimal so we don’t contaminate the stem cell yield.”
“Just do your job, Harrison,” I muttered, clenching my jaw as I gripped the edges of the leather table.
Across the room, standing just outside the perimeter of the sterile field, Sloan watched with her arms wrapped tightly around her waist. She looked pale, exhausted, but entirely anchored.
“Ready?” Harrison asked.
I nodded once.
The needle pierced the skin of my hip and iliac crest, sliding deep into the bone marrow. A blinding, searing flash of white-hot agony tore through my lower back and pelvis, stealing the breath from my lungs. I grunted, my knuckles turning white as I dug my fingernails into the leather upholstery, fighting the primal urge to scream.
Think of something else, my mind screamed. Think of anything else.
I closed my eyes, and instead of pain, I saw Willa’s tiny hand curling around my thumb. I saw Sloan’s tired green eyes looking at me with a spark of forgiveness. I saw a future where we weren't two broken people living in separate worlds, but a family standing together under one roof.
“Extracting now,” Harrison’s voice sounded distant, filtered through a ringing in my ears. “Good yield. High cellular concentration. We’ve got what we need.”
The pressure in my hip suddenly released, leaving a dull, throbbing ache that radiated down my leg. I let out a long, shuddering breath, my shirt damp with cold sweat.
“Done,” Harrison announced, stepping back as a nurse quickly covered the puncture site with a sterile bandage. “Transporting the sample to the incubator suite immediately for vector synthesis. We can administer the first infusion to Willa by midnight.”
I pushed myself up slowly on one elbow, wincing as the pain flared in my lower back.
Sloan was across the room in two seconds. She didn't say a word; she simply knelt beside the table, gently placing her hand on my forehead, wiping away the cold sweat with a clean cloth.
“You idiot,” she whispered, her voice thick with unshed tears. “You didn't have to endure that.”
“Yes, I did,” I replied, my voice raspy as I caught her hand and pressed my lips against her knuckles. “Some debts can’t be paid with money, Sloan. Some debts can only be paid in blood.”
She looked down at me, the last remaining wall between us finally crumbling into dust. She leaned in, resting her forehead against mine, her breath warm against my cheek.
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“She’s going to be okay,” Sloan whispered. “Harrison said the vector match is ninety-nine point eight percent. It’s going to work.”
“I know,” I murmured, wrapping my arm around her back and pulling her down until she rested against my shoulder, right there on the improvised surgical table in the middle of my study. “And neither of you are ever walking out of my life again.”
