I Raised The Mafia Boss’s Secret Daughter For Five Years—Until He Caught Her At The Airport / Chapter 90 / 95

Chapter 90 - The Bloodline Protocol

"What does that mean?" I demanded, watching Vincent struggle against the blinding pain in his side.

Vincent leaned against the wall, gesturing toward Mateo. "Open the underfloor storage in the Rover. Bring me the black briefcase."

Mateo hesitated, glancing toward the sky before nodding sharply. He slipped out to the vehicle and returned twenty seconds later carrying a heavy, aluminum flight case sealed with dual biometric locks.

"When Julian designed the biometric ledger for Father five years ago," Vincent said, placing his thumb on the left scanner while typing an eight-digit override code, "he made one fatal assumption. He assumed our mother died without leaving a trace."

The case unlatched with a sharp click. Inside lay a padded tray holding three glass vials containing amber liquid, a sterile cold-storage cylinder, and an encrypted hard drive.

"What is that?" I asked.

"Julian built the acoustic and genomic lock around the De Marco maternal haplogroup," Vincent explained, his voice low and dangerous. "Lorenzo's father married an aristocratic woman from Genoa—my mother, Julian's mother. Her DNA sequence is the foundational root key for the entire offshore architecture. Julian believes Maya is the only surviving descendant carrying that maternal mitochondrial line."

I frowned, my heart thumping against my ribs. "Isn't she?"

"No," Vincent said, looking up directly into my eyes.

The intensity of his gaze made the breath catch in my throat.

"Julian had Maya with an anonymous surrogate," Vincent continued. "He picked a woman who matched our mother's phenotypic traits, but the mitochondrial match wasn't natural. Julian used an experimental gene-splicing therapy to introduce the haplogroup sequence into the embryo. It was an engineering project."

"You're saying Maya isn't naturally related to Julian?"

"She is Julian's biological child," Vincent clarified. "But the biometric key Julian encoded isn't tied to his own blood. It's tied to our mother's lineage. And Julian has an older sister who was sent away to the United States thirty years ago before the syndicate rose to power. A sister who had a daughter."

I stared at him, the warehouse suddenly feeling completely airless. "Why are you telling me this?"

Vincent reached into the case, pulled out the cold-storage cylinder, and unscrewed the cap, revealing a sterile collection needle and an ampoule of synthetic enzyme.

"Julian's drone is tracking thermal signatures inside this building," Vincent said grimly. "In forty minutes, his ground team will surround the perimeter to escort the 'delivery.' If you show up at that hangar with Maya, Julian gets his key and kills everyone else."

"Then what are you proposing?"

"We don't bring Maya to the airport," Vincent said, stepping toward me. "We substitute the genetic signature. The hard drive in this case contains the raw biometric file of my mother's genuine line. If we inject a temporary synthetic marker into an adult carrier, any standard field scanner Julian's medical team uses on the tarmac will read that carrier as the primary asset."

My eyes widened in horror and realization. "You want me to walk into that hangar."

"No," Vincent whispered, his voice cracking with raw emotion. "I want you to take Maya and run through the subterranean aqueducts beneath the railway tracks. Mateo will guide you to the French border."

"Then who goes to the hangar?"