Chapter 4 - The Citadel on the Lake
By midnight, Clara was resting in a secure, heavily guarded VIP room on the fourteenth floor of Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Two armed tactical officers stood outside her door, and Detective Vance had personally vetted every nurse and orderly assigned to her wing.
I sat in the chair beside her bed, holding her hand. Her skin was warm now. Her breathing was steady. Every few minutes, I would reach out and gently touch her rounded stomach, feeling the faint, reassuring kick of our baby reminding me that they were both still here.
Clara stirred slowly, her eyelids fluttering open.
“Daniel...” she whispered, her voice raspy.
“I’m here,” I said, leaning over and pressing my lips to her forehead. “You’re safe, sweetheart. You’re in the hospital. The police know everything.”
Tears spilled over her lashes. “My mother... Marcus... they’re monsters, Daniel. I saw the books. They aren't just selling babies... they’re engineering them. Using genetic mapping from our clinic trials. They planned to take our child the moment it was born, declare it stillborn, and sell it to a buyer in Geneva for ten million dollars.”
“It’s over, Clara,” I murmured, stroking her hair. “They’re exposed. The feds are moving on their accounts tonight.”
“You don’t know my mother,” Clara said, her grip on my hand tightening with sudden, desperate strength. “She doesn't lose. If she can’t have the child, she’ll burn the whole world down to keep her secrets buried.”
She was right.
Ten minutes later, the security monitors in the hallway began to hiss with static.
The overhead fluorescent lights flickered once, twice, and then plunged the entire fourteenth floor into absolute, pitch-black darkness.
In the distance, an emergency alarm began to wail—not a fire alarm, but a facility-wide lockdown klaxon.
The heavy steel fire doors at the end of the corridor slammed shut with a metallic boom.
“Daniel,” Clara breathed, her eyes wide with terror as shadows moved past the frosted glass of her hospital room door.
I stood up slowly, slipping my hand into my jacket pocket. I didn't have a gun. I was an engineer, not a soldier. But I had my wits, a heavy iron IV pole I unhooked from the wall, and an overwhelming, primal fury that no billionaire syndicate could ever buy off.
The door handle of Clara’s room turned.
May you like
Slowly. Silently.
The latch clicked.
