The lead man pulled a small electronic device from his pocket and pressed it against the card reader.

The reader beeped once, its light turning from red to green.

“They have the administrative bypass codes,” Ethan said. “My father’s company designed the security grid for this wing.”

“How could he do this?” I whispered. “To his own grandchildren?”

“To him, they are assets,” Ethan said. “They are leverage.”

The men pushed the double doors open.

Inside the glass-walled nursery, the yellow warning lights on the incubators flickered.

I could see the tiny, fragile shapes of my twins through the distant window.

They were hooked to thin wires and breathing tubes, their chests rising and falling in rapid, shallow jerks.

“Wait here,” Ethan said, gently detaching my hand from his arm.

“Ethan, don’t leave me,” I said.

“I am going to the manual override,” he said. “It is the only way to lock the pneumatic seals.”

He ran down the intersecting hallway toward the auxiliary utility room.

I stood alone, clutching the IV pole, my body shaking with cold sweat.

The lead man in gray walked straight toward incubator four.