Chapter 3

Late at night, the hospital corridors were silent.

I sat in front of my lab computer, watching the results pop up on the screen. A dark fire of revenge ignited in my chest.

The first was the DNA report.

It showed that the fused skin cells had completely merged at a genetic level, showing abnormal cellular proliferation. They had literally become one on a biological level.

The second was the chemical analysis.

And it was exactly what I had suspected.

The "bio-gel" they used wasn't my research.

It was a black-market product I had read about in an international journal—a dangerous, experimental compound called "Gene-Grafting Gel," which had been banned by the FDA due to severe side effects.

This gel used specific enzymes to force cell walls of different organisms to rupture and reconstruct, creating an artificial graft. It was originally designed for interspecies organ transplants.

But it had a fatal flaw. The catalytic reaction was highly unstable. If the ratio was off, or if the temperature and humidity of the environment weren't perfect, it would trigger uncontrollable, continuous cellular fusion. It would create a permanent, inseparable mass of flesh.

Even worse, once this fusion process started, it couldn't be stopped by standard surgery. Any remaining gel in their tissue would act like cancer cells, triggering secondary and tertiary fusions with any skin they touched.

In other words, they were now like two magnets. Even if you pulled them apart, if they got too close again, they would literally melt back into each other.

The only way to stop it was a highly specific inhibitor.

And the formula for that inhibitor was locked safely inside my head—a byproduct of my own research to prevent accidents.

Looking at the report, I laughed.

They had tried to steal my life's work, but because they couldn't get their hands on my actual formula, they bought a cheap, dangerous knockoff on the black market.

And Vanessa was so confident I could "save" them because she assumed I had the real gel and the cure.

She wanted everything. My career, my research, my future.

Perfect. Just perfect.

I encrypted the files, saved them to a secure drive, and dialed a number.

"Hello, Eleanor? It’s Ethan. I’m so sorry to call this late. But I just found out Richard had... an accident. He’s currently admitted to our hospital. Can you come over? There are some things you have a right to know."