CHAPTER 10 — The Breach
The response was faster than I expected.
Within thirty minutes of the files hitting the Globe’s servers,
the atmosphere in the hospital shifted from tension to chaos.
My phone began to vibrate incessantly—calls from the board,
calls from my brothers,
calls from numbers I didn't recognize.
I ignored them all.
I was standing in the hallway outside the NICU,
watching Agent Miller and his team.
They were on their phones too,
their faces pale,
their professional masks slipping.
They knew the tide was turning.
They knew the man who had signed their orders was currently being named in the biggest corruption scandal in the state’s history.
Suddenly,
the elevator at the end of the hall opened.
It wasn't more lawyers.
It wasn't more police.
It was my mother.
She walked down the hallway with a speed that belied her age,
her eyes fixed on me like twin lasers.
She was alone,
no guards,
no assistants.
She looked like a queen who had just been told the guillotine was being sharpened.
"What have you done?"
she hissed,
stopping a few feet from me.
Her voice was low,
trembling with a rage so intense it was almost physical.
"I told you I’d burn it down,
Mother,"
I said,
crossing my arms.
"I don't think you believed me."
"You've destroyed us!"
she shrieked,
forgetting the decorum of the hospital.
"The name,
the legacy,
everything your father worked for!
You’ve handed it to the vultures!"
"My father built a legacy on theft and lies,"
I said.
"And you kept it alive with bribes and blackmail.
The vultures aren't the ones outside,
Mother.
The vultures are right here in this family."
She stepped closer,
her face contorted.
"You think those children will thank you for this?
You think they’ll want to be the sons of a man who destroyed his own blood?
They’ll be outcasts!
They’ll have nothing!"
"They’ll have their mother,"
I said.
"And they’ll have a father who isn't a criminal.
That’s more than I ever had."
She raised her hand to strike me,
but I caught her wrist mid-air.
My grip was firm,
not enough to hurt,
but enough to show her that her power over me was gone.
"Don't,"
I said.
"It’s over,
Eleanor.
The police will be at the estate within the hour.
I suggest you find a very good lawyer.
Though,
from what I’ve heard,
all the good ones are currently deleting their own files."
She looked at me with a pure,
unadulterated hatred.
"I should have left you in that gutter when you were born,"
she whispered.
The words were a final,
desperate attempt to wound me.
But they didn't.
They only confirmed what I had always suspected.
I wasn't a son to her.
I was an investment.
"Goodbye,
Mother,"
I said,
releasing her wrist.
She stood there for a moment,
a small,
broken woman in an expensive coat,
before turning and walking back toward the elevator.
I watched her go,
feeling the last thread of my old life snap.
But as she stepped into the elevator,
something caught my eye.
Two men I didn't recognize were standing by the service stairs.
They weren't in uniform.
They weren't wearing suits.
They were wearing heavy jackets and tactical boots.
One of them reached into his jacket.
My heart stopped.
They weren't my mother’s men.
They weren't the police.
They were someone else entirely.
"Security!"
I yelled,
lunging toward the door of the NICU.
"Lock the ward!
Now!"
The man pulled a weapon—a small,
compact submachine gun.
The first spray of bullets shattered the glass of the nurses' station.
The world exploded into screams and flying glass.
I dived for the floor,
my mind screaming one name.
Mara.
The boys.
The war wasn't over.
It had just turned lethal.
