The Scorned Heiress: No More Mercy novel Chapter 604

The vibration pattern is different from her usual notifications. Tara instantly grabs her phone, boots up a heavily encrypted secondary operating system, and opens a message from Joey.

[I checked into Jovani and the Sinclair family. Nothing. It’s a dead end. They have zero interaction.]

Tara’s eyebrows arch in skepticism. Her fingers fly across the screen.

[If there’s absolutely no trace, that just proves they’re hiding something. A clean slate is the biggest red flag.]

If she hadn’t caught that loaded, intense look Jovani had given Gregory at the gala, she might have bought the lie. But that look spoke volumes. If they act like strangers on paper, someone has meticulously wiped their history.

[My thoughts exactly. I’m bypassing standard protocols to dig deeper. Give me some time.] Joey’s next text pops up a second later. [I didn’t find their connection, but I did find a massive secret regarding Jovani.]

Joey deliberately leaves her hanging. Amused, Tara plays along.

[What secret? Don't tell me she has a secret love child.]

The institute uses human beings as lab rats. Regardless of whether an experiment succeeds or fails, the subject is branded to mark them as the organization's permanent property.

There are two reasons someone gets the mark. The first is if they possess elite genetics and are used as a biological farm—constantly harvested for their DNA and blood until they are entirely drained or dead. Tara herself had been abducted by them for exactly this purpose. If her mentor hadn’t rescued her, she would have been branded and drained dry.

The second reason is far more common. An ordinary person with average intelligence volunteers as a test subject to receive illicit genetic enhancements, desperately trying to rewrite their natural limitations and climb the social ladder.