Chapter 3 Who Is the Prey?

Chapter 3: Who Is the Prey?

Theodore Cantrell's heart attack made the front page of every newspaper in the country. "PATRIARCH COLLAPSES AMID FAMILY SCANDAL," the headlines blared. The stock price of Cantrell Industries plummeted as shareholders panicked over the uncertain future of the company's leadership.

I watched it all from the sanctuary of my penthouse, monitoring the chaos I had orchestrated with meticulous care. Three years of planning, of gathering information piece by piece, of placing my pawns in strategic positions throughout the Cantrell empire. Now the game was in its middle phase, and I was several moves ahead.

"Ms. Morton?" My assistant knocked softly before entering. "Ernest Cantrell is in the lobby. He's demanding to see you."

I glanced at the security feed on my tablet. Ernest looked unhinged—his normally immaculate appearance disheveled, his eyes wild with rage and desperation. Four of my security guards blocked his path to the elevator.

"How many men is he with?" I asked, calmly sipping my tea.

"Three. They appear to be private security, not Cantrell Industries personnel."

I nodded. "Let him up. But only him."

My assistant hesitated. "Are you sure that's wise? He seems... unstable."

"He is unstable," I agreed. "That's exactly why I want to see him."

Five minutes later, Ernest burst through my door, my security team close behind him. He stopped short when he saw me lounging on my sofa, utterly at ease.

"You bitch," he seethed, hands clenched into fists at his sides. "My father is in intensive care because of you."

"Your father is in intensive care because of decades of stress, poor diet, and the consequences of his own actions," I corrected. "I merely provided the catalyst."

Ernest took a threatening step forward, but my security guards moved closer in response. He glanced at them, then back at me.

"What do you want?" he demanded. "Money? Control of the company? Revenge? Just tell me and end this nightmare."

I set down my teacup and stood. "What I want isn't something you can give me, Ernest. Not anymore."

"The boy? Thomas? Is that it?" His voice cracked. "You can see him. We can arrange visitation—"

"Now you offer me access to my own son?" I laughed bitterly. "After three years of pretending I don't exist? After telling him his mother died in childbirth?"

Ernest had the decency to look away. "We can fix that. We'll tell him the truth."

"Which truth?" I asked coldly. "That his 'father' is actually his half-brother? That his real father is his grandfather? That his entire existence is built on lies?"

"Stop it!" Ernest shouted. "Just stop! Thomas is innocent in all this. He's just a child who needs his mother's bone marrow."

I walked to the window, gazing out at the city below. "Thomas doesn't need my bone marrow, Ernest. As I told you, his condition is temporary and treatable."

"The doctors—"

"The doctors are looking at falsified test results," I cut him off. "Arranged by people on my payroll. Thomas will make a miraculous recovery in exactly nineteen days."

Ernest stared at me in disbelief. "You're insane. You would let your own child suffer—"

"He isn't suffering," I snapped, turning to face him. "He's experiencing mild fatigue and some joint pain, all carefully monitored and managed with medication. Nothing compared to what I went through when your mother ordered the doctors to perform an unnecessary hysterectomy after my delivery."

Ernest's face went blank. "What are you talking about? You had complications—hemorrhaging—"

"I had a perfectly normal delivery," I said quietly. "But your mother couldn't risk me having another child that might threaten Thomas's position. So while I was still unconscious, she had her pet surgeon remove my uterus."

The color drained from Ernest's face. "No. Mother wouldn't—"

"Wouldn't she?" I walked to my desk and retrieved a file, tossing it at his feet. Medical records spilled across the floor—surgical notes, consent forms with forged signatures, payment records to hospital administrators who looked the other way.

Ernest stared at the documents, horror dawning on his face. "I didn't know," he whispered.

"Of course you didn't," I replied. "You were too busy counting your money and planning your return to society as the grieving husband whose wife had suffered 'complications.'"

He looked up at me, and for the first time, I saw genuine remorse in his eyes. "Ava, I swear—"

"Save it," I cut him off. "I'm not interested in your epiphanies or apologies. I'm interested in justice."

Ernest gathered himself, straightening his shoulders. "Fine. Justice. What does that look like to you? Name your terms."

I smiled coldly. "I want my eggs back."

He blinked in confusion. "Your... eggs?"

"My frozen eggs," I clarified. "The ones I had harvested before our marriage, when I suspected you might not be the prince charming you pretended to be. The ones mentioned in the document I showed you in the delivery room."

Understanding dawned on his face. "The fertility clinic. That's what this is about?"

"Those eggs are mine," I said. "The last chance I have at biological children after what your family did to me."

Ernest nodded slowly. "Fine. I'll have them transferred to whatever clinic you choose. Just end this madness."

I laughed. "You think they're still at the clinic? Your mother had them moved to your family's private medical facility the day after Thomas was born. They're in the basement lab of your mansion."

"That's impossible," Ernest protested. "I would know if—"

"If what? If your mother was keeping my reproductive material hostage? The same way she kept me hostage for nine months? The same way she stole my uterus without my consent?"

Ernest ran a hand through his disheveled hair. "If what you're saying is true—"

"It is."

"—then I'll get them for you myself. Today. Now."

I nodded to my security team, who stepped aside from the door. "Then go. Bring them to me, and perhaps I'll consider ending this public spectacle."

After Ernest left, I turned to my assistant. "Is everything in place at the Cantrell mansion?"

She nodded. "Our people have been in position since this morning. The cameras are active."

"Good." I checked my watch. "It's time for phase three."

---

Two hours later, my phone buzzed with an alert. The security cameras I'd had installed in the Cantrell mansion showed Ernest and four armed men entering the underground laboratory. I watched on my tablet as they located the cryogenic storage unit with my name clearly labeled on it.

"It's here," Ernest said to his men. "Get it ready for transport."

One of the security guards carefully removed the container from its housing. "Sir, are you sure about this? If your mother—"

"My mother has done enough damage," Ernest snapped. "Just get it to the car."

I smiled to myself. Everything was proceeding exactly as planned.

Twenty minutes later, Ernest burst into my penthouse again, this time carrying the cryogenic container himself.

"Here," he said, placing it carefully on my coffee table. "Your eggs. Now call off your media hounds and tell the truth about Thomas's condition."

I approached the container slowly, running my fingers over the frost-covered surface. "Open it," I ordered.

Ernest looked uncertain. "It needs to stay sealed until—"

"Open it," I repeated. "Now."

With hesitant movements, Ernest unlocked the container and lifted the lid. Cold vapor billowed out—and revealed an empty chamber.

His face paled. "I don't understand. They were supposed to be here."

I closed the lid calmly. "Yes, they were. Three years ago."

"Where are they?" Ernest demanded. "Did my mother move them?"

"Your mother," I said, walking back to the window, "believes they're still safely stored in that container. She checks on them monthly—or rather, she checks on what she thinks are them."

Ernest's confusion turned to anger. "What game are you playing now, Ava?"

I pressed a button on my phone, and the large television on my wall flickered to life. On the screen appeared a message, projected onto the wall of the Cantrell mansion's laboratory:

"LOOKING FOR SOMETHING? FIRST, FIND YOUR FATHER'S OTHER CHILDREN."

Ernest stared at the screen, uncomprehending. "What does that mean?"

"It means, dear husband, that if you want to find my eggs—your only chance at a legitimate heir now that Thomas has been exposed—you'll need to locate your father's illegitimate children first."

"This is absurd," Ernest scoffed. "My father doesn't have other children."

"Doesn't he?" I raised an eyebrow. "Theodore Cantrell, who impregnated his son's wife? You think that was his first transgression? His only secret?"

Before Ernest could respond, the television screen changed to show the basement laboratory again. A hidden door was sliding open in the back wall—a door I'd had installed months ago by contractors posing as maintenance workers.

From the darkness emerged three men, one after another. Men in their thirties and forties, with varying builds and coloring—but all bearing the unmistakable Cantrell features: the sharp jawline, the distinctive nose, the steel-blue eyes.

Ernest staggered backward. "Who—who are they?"

"Your brothers," I replied simply. "Well, half-brothers. Theodore has been quite... prolific... over the decades. These three are just the ones I could find and convince to join our little drama."

The men on the screen looked directly at the camera—directly at Ernest—with cold, calculating expressions that mirrored his own.

"What do they want?" Ernest whispered.

"The same thing you want," I said. "A piece of the Cantrell fortune. A seat at the table that should have been theirs by birth."

Ernest's face hardened. "They're nothing. Bastards. They have no legal claim—"

"Don't they?" I interrupted. "Your father's real will might disagree."

"The will is with our family attorneys," Ernest insisted.

"A copy is with your attorneys," I corrected. "The original—the one with the codicil acknowledging all his biological children—is in my possession."

Ernest lunged at me then, grabbing my shoulders. "Where is it? Where's the will?"

My security team moved to intervene, but I waved them off. "Remove your hands, Ernest, or the next thing you see will be your father's DNA test results broadcast on national television."

He released me slowly, trembling with rage. "You can't do this. You can't destroy generations of our family's legacy."

"Your family's legacy," I said coldly, "is built on the bodies of women like me. Used, discarded, silenced. But I won't be silenced."

I nodded toward the television, where the three men were now moving through the laboratory, examining equipment, opening drawers.

"Your brothers have a message for you," I said.

On screen, the oldest of the three men—a distinguished-looking gentleman with salt-and-pepper hair—turned to the camera and smiled.

"Hello, little brother," he said, his voice eerily similar to Theodore's. "Our sister Ava has made us an interesting proposition. Whoever eliminates you from the succession gets to be the new Cantrell heir. May the best son win."

The screen went black, and Ernest stood frozen, his face ashen.

"They're in my house," he whispered. "You let strangers into my house."

"Not strangers," I corrected. "Family. Your blood. Theodore's legacy."

Ernest backed toward the door. "You've lost your mind. I'm calling security—"

"Your security has been replaced," I informed him calmly. "The men guarding your house tonight are employed by me. The men guarding your father's hospital room work for me. Even Jenkins, your father's most trusted bodyguard, has been on my payroll for months."

Ernest's back hit the wall. "What do you want from me?" he asked, his voice breaking.

I approached him slowly. "I want you to feel what I felt, Ernest. Helpless. Betrayed. Used. I want you to know what it's like to have everything you thought was yours stripped away in an instant."

"And then what? You'll kill me?"

I laughed softly. "Kill you? Oh no, Ernest. Death would be too merciful. I want you to live—live to see the Cantrell empire dismantled piece by piece, live to see your father's legacy divided among his secret children, live to see Thomas grow up knowing exactly what kind of family he comes from."

I opened the door to my penthouse. "Now go. Your brothers are waiting. And Ernest?" I smiled coldly. "Do try to stay alive. The game is just getting interesting."

As the elevator doors closed on his terrified face, I turned back to my security team. "Track him. I want to know exactly where he goes."

My assistant nodded. "And the brothers?"

"Make sure they follow the script," I replied. "No actual violence—just enough fear to keep Ernest running."

As my team dispersed to carry out their tasks, I returned to the window, gazing out at the twinkling city lights. The real eggs had never been in the Cantrell mansion. They were safely stored in a clinic in Switzerland, under a different name. But Ernest didn't need to know that.

Not yet.

Not until I was ready for the final act.