Chapter 3 - BLOOD IS NOT THE ONLY PROOFEliza’s first instinct was to run to her sister.
Her second was to pull Noah into her arms.
She could do neither.
Dr. Soren held the remote in one hand. His guards kept their weapons aimed at Damian and Sofia.
Rachel stood between them, wrists bound behind her.
She looked thinner than in the photograph. A bruise darkened her cheek, and dried blood covered the collar of her shirt.
But she was alive.
“Eliza,” she said again.
Twelve years of questions crowded into Eliza’s throat.
Why didn’t you come home?
Why did you let us mourn you?
Why did you stay with my child?
Why did you protect me by destroying me?
Instead, she asked, “Are you hurt?”
Rachel gave a broken laugh.
“Still you.”
“What does that mean?”
“You always ask about everyone else first.”
Noah remained perfectly still beneath the blinking red light.
“Aunt Rachel, is it true?”
Rachel looked at him.
“What?”
“That she is my mother.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t she come?”
“She didn’t know where you were.”
“You knew.”
Pain crossed Rachel’s face.
“I tried to take you away.”
“When?”
“More times than I can count.”
Dr. Soren tightened his grip on the remote.
“That is enough.”
Damian studied the room.
Two guards.
One camera above the door.
A medication cabinet behind Soren.
Morris stood several feet from Noah, watching the injector attached to his neck.
“Marcus wants us alive,” Damian said.
Soren smiled faintly.
“Some of you.”
“Where is he?”
“Watching.”
“Of course.”
Marcus’s voice returned.
“I find distance improves honesty.”
Eliza looked into the camera.
“You stole my son.”
“I removed an asset from an unstable situation.”
“He was a newborn.”
“He became valuable the moment Damian’s name appeared on his birth record.”
“You made him sick.”
“Noah was born with a defect.”
“You prevented treatment.”
“I provided the best doctors money could buy.”
“Doctors you controlled.”
Marcus did not answer.
Rachel stared at Soren’s hand.
“The remote has a ten-foot signal limit.”
Everyone looked at her.
Soren struck her across the face.
Noah cried out.
The sensor beeped faster.
“Stop!” Eliza shouted.
Morris raised both hands.
“Noah’s heart rate is climbing. If the device monitors rhythm, stress may trigger an automatic dose.”
Soren glanced at the remote display.
The hesitation confirmed it.
Damian saw it too.
“You cannot let him collapse,” he said. “Marcus needs him alive.”
Soren’s face remained calm.
“Marcus needs one heir alive.”
His gaze moved toward the camera.
“Oliver is still on the mainland.”
Eliza felt ice enter her blood.
“You cannot reach him.”
Marcus laughed.
“You continue to believe the people around you cannot be purchased.”
Damian immediately pressed the communication device in his ear.
Nothing.
The signal was dead.
Eliza pictured Oliver holding Damian’s watch.
Dr. Morris’s apartment.
The guards.
Arthur in bed.
“What did you do?” Damian demanded.
The classroom monitors switched on.
A live security feed showed the apartment corridor.
Two guards lay unconscious.
The door to Oliver’s room stood open.
Eliza stopped breathing.
Then Arthur appeared on the screen.
He sat in a wheelchair outside the door holding a pistol.
A man in black lay bleeding near his feet.
Oliver crouched behind him.
Arthur looked directly at the hallway camera.
“Damian,” he said, somehow aware they were watching. “Your son is safe.”
Relief hit so violently Eliza nearly collapsed.
More of Damian’s guards entered the corridor and secured the apartment.
Marcus’s voice lost its amusement.
Arthur had chosen a side.
Soren looked toward the monitor.
That distraction lasted one second.
It was enough.
Sofia threw a small blade.
It struck Soren’s wrist.
The remote fell.
Damian drove his shoulder into the nearest guard.
Jonah tackled the second.
Eliza lunged toward Noah.
Morris shouted, “Don’t touch the device!”
Eliza stopped inches from her child.
The sensor blinked faster.
Soren reached for the remote with his uninjured hand.
Rachel kicked it beneath a cabinet.
Sofia struck him across the jaw.
The guards went down beneath Damian and Jonah.
For several seconds, the room filled with breath, struggle and Noah’s quiet crying.
Then it was over.
Soren lay face-down with Sofia’s knee between his shoulders.
Damian recovered the remote.
“Which button disables the injector?”
Soren laughed through blood.
“Try one.”
Damian pressed the muzzle of his gun against the doctor’s neck.
“Which button?”
“Kill me, and you will never know.”
Morris approached Noah carefully.
“Can I look without touching?”
The boy nodded.
She examined the device with a flashlight.
“It has a small medication cartridge. I see two leads connected to an adhesive pad.”
“Can you remove it?” Eliza asked.
“Yes, but I need to interrupt the signal and prevent the mechanical trigger from firing.”
Rachel knelt beside the cabinet and pulled out the remote.
“It is not the only control.”
“How do you know?” Damian asked.
“I helped design the tracking system.”
Eliza stared at her.
Rachel did not look away.
“I told myself I was improving it so children could not be lost inside the facilities.”
“You helped put this on him?”
“No. The original device only tracked heart rate and location. Soren added the injector.”
Soren smiled against the floor.
“You were always eager to excuse yourself.”
Rachel’s face hardened.
“I kept records of every child you touched.”
“And you stayed.”
“So they would have one person who remembered their real names.”
Noah looked at her.
“You knew my name?”
“From the first day.”
“Why did you call me Elliot?”
“Because Marcus punished you when I used Noah.”
The boy’s face crumpled.
Rachel moved toward him but stopped beside Eliza.
For the first time, the two women stood shoulder to shoulder.
Morris opened her medical bag.
“I need a magnet, a thin blade and something to block the spring mechanism.”
Sofia handed her tools from a security kit.
Damian held the remote.
“Tell me what to do.”
“Keep it more than ten feet away in case Rachel is right.”
Damian backed toward the door.
Morris placed the magnet near the sensor.
The blinking light became steady.
Noah’s breathing quickened.
Eliza held out her hand.
“You can hold me if you want.”
He stared at it.
Then took one of her fingers.
The contact nearly broke her.
Morris slid the blade beneath the casing.
A tiny click sounded.
Everyone froze.
“It’s all right,” she said.
She inserted a narrow metal strip.
“Rachel, keep him talking.”
Rachel knelt.
“Do you remember the story about the two wolves?”
Noah nodded.
“You always changed the ending.”
“The smaller wolf wins.”
“Why?”
“Because everyone forgets to watch him.”
Rachel smiled through tears.
“That’s right.”
Morris released the casing.
The device came away from Noah’s neck.
A needle snapped forward into the metal strip instead of his skin.
Eliza pulled him against her before she could stop herself.
Noah became rigid.
She immediately loosened her arms.
“I’m sorry.”
For one painful second, she thought he would push her away.
Then his hands closed around her sweater.
He buried his face against her chest.
Eliza held him.
Not too tightly.
Not as if love gave her ownership.
As if she understood he could leave her arms whenever he needed.
Damian crossed the room.
Noah looked up at him.
“Are you going to take me away from Aunt Rachel?”
Damian looked at Rachel.
“No one is taking you from anyone tonight.”
“You’re my father.”
“Yes.”
“Do I have to call you Dad?”
“No.”
The answer surprised the boy.
“What should I call you?”
“Whatever makes you comfortable.”
Noah studied him.
“Damian?”
“That works.”
Oliver’s name escaped Eliza before she could stop it.
“Your brother wants you to know he has the top bunk.”
Noah frowned.
“I don’t like top bunks.”
“Then the first family argument may already be solved.”
A small smile touched his mouth.
Marcus’s voice interrupted.
“How touching.”
The classroom doors locked.
Steel shutters dropped over the windows.
The ventilation system began roaring.
Soren laughed beneath Sofia’s knee.
“You should have left the device attached.”
A sharp chemical smell entered the room.
Morris covered Noah’s face with a cloth.
“Not sedative gas. Smoke.”
The monitor showed flames moving through the pavilion’s lower hall.
Marcus was burning the building.
Damian pulled Soren upright.
“Exit.”
The doctor smiled.
“There isn’t one.”
Rachel turned toward the children’s drawings.
“The greenhouse tunnel.”
“What?” Eliza asked.
“Noah drew the woman beside two boys because I told him we would leave through the glass house one day.”
Rachel pulled a section of wall molding.
A narrow panel opened behind a bookcase.
Heat entered the classroom hallway.
They moved into the passage.
Jonah carried one unconscious guard. Sofia left the second after confirming he had no pulse.
Soren was forced ahead of Damian.
The tunnel descended beneath the pavilion and emerged inside an enormous greenhouse.
Moonlight shone through a glass roof. Dead vines hung from metal beams. Rows of empty planting beds created narrow paths toward the cliffs.
Noah stopped.
“This is where she died.”
Eliza looked at Rachel.
“Who?”
“A woman who tried to help me escape,” Noah said.
Rachel’s expression tightened.
“Her name was Clara.”
“Marcus said she fell through the glass.”
Rachel shook her head.
“Marcus pushed her.”
A sound came from above.
Footsteps on the greenhouse roof.
Red laser sights appeared through the fogged glass.
Damian pushed everyone behind the planting beds.
Bullets shattered the roof.
Glass rained across the greenhouse.
Soren used the chaos to strike Sofia and run.
He reached a side door.
A shot came from outside.
Soren fell backward.
Marcus stood beyond the doorway beneath a black umbrella.
He lowered the weapon.
“You were always replaceable, Doctor.”
Men entered behind him.
Damian aimed at Marcus.
Three rifles immediately targeted Eliza and Noah.
Marcus smiled.
“Now we can discuss the difference between blood and family.”
Rachel stepped in front of Noah.
Marcus’s gaze settled on her.
“You disappointed me.”
“I learned from you.”
“No. You learned sentiment.”
He looked at Eliza.
“Your sister raised your son. Damian raised the other. Tell me, Eliza—what exactly belongs to you?”
Eliza held Noah’s hand.
“Nothing.”
Marcus’s smile faded.
“My sons do not belong to me. My sister does not belong to me. Damian does not belong to me.”
She looked directly at him.
“That is the difference between us.”
Marcus raised his gun.
“An inspiring answer.”
A deep mechanical sound came from beneath the greenhouse.
The building shook.
Rachel looked toward the cliffs.
“What did you do?”
Marcus stepped backward.
“Removed the last evidence.”
The stone floor cracked.
Seawater surged through the lower vents.
Bellweather’s southern foundation was collapsing into the ocean.
Marcus and his men retreated through the side door.
Damian fired, but the steel frame closed between them.
Water rushed around their ankles.
Noah began to panic.
Rachel pointed toward the far end.
“The old maintenance lift!”
They ran as the glass house broke apart behind them.
Eliza carried Noah when his breathing became too labored.
Damian forced open the lift gate.
Everyone crowded onto the rusted platform.
Rachel pulled the lever.
Nothing happened.
Water reached the base.
Damian opened the control box and crossed two wires.
The lift jerked upward.
Below them, the greenhouse floor split.
Half the structure vanished into black water.
Noah clung to Eliza.
“Is he going to kill Oliver?”
“No.”
“You don’t know.”
Eliza looked at Damian.
His face revealed the same fear.
“No,” she said again. “Because we are going home before Marcus reaches him.”
Rachel stared up through the metal framework.
“He is not going to the apartment.”
“How do you know?” Damian asked.
“He has another copy of the original birth record.”
“What does that change?”
“The Harlow trust recognizes biological heirs only after identity confirmation at the family registry.”
Damian’s face went cold.
“The courthouse archive.”
Rachel nodded.
“Marcus does not need Oliver dead.”
May you like
She looked at Noah.
“He needs both boys alive long enough to make himself their legal guardian.”
