Chapter 17 - The Shadow at St. Jude’s
Nathan answered the secure line on the second ring,
pressing the receiver to his ear while his free hand remained resting protectively on the small of my back.
“Report,
Marco,”
Nathan said,
his voice instantly shifting from playful warmth back into the sharp,
analytical tone of a military commander.
Through the earpiece,
I could hear the distant sound of children shouting playfully on a playground,
interspersed with the low,
rhythmic hum of an idling engine.
“Mr.
Brooks,”
Marco’s deep voice came through the speaker,
measured and calm,
yet carrying that undercurrent of hyper-vigilance that had kept our family alive for six months.
“It’s about Noah’s school.
St.
Jude’s Academy dismissed twenty minutes ago for the afternoon recess before the private tutoring session.
A silver Chrysler sedan with tinted windows and counterfeit government plates has circled the perimeter fence three times in the last fifteen minutes.”
My heart skipped a beat,
a cold spike of maternal panic instantly piercing through the calm I had maintained all morning in the boardroom.
I stepped closer to Nathan,
pressing my ear against the phone so I could hear every single word.
“Did they make contact?”
I demanded,
my fingers digging into Nathan’s sleeve.
“Did anyone approach Noah or Lily?”
“Negative,
Mrs.
Brooks,”
Marco reassured me immediately.
“The children are inside the private library wing with Clara and two of our plainclothes guards.
They don’t suspect a thing.
Noah is currently arguing with his math tutor about the geometric necessity of square root tables,
and Lily is drawing a portrait of a three-legged cat.”
A faint,
relieved breath escaped my lips,
though my pulse continued to drum like a war hammer against my ribs.
“Did you run the Chrysler’s registration,
Marco?”
Nathan asked,
his jaw setting into a hard,
unforgiving line.
“The plates belong to a decommissioned state vehicle from Nevada,”
Marco replied grimly.
“Our field agents intercepted an encrypted transmission on the local frequency four minutes ago.
The driver is taking photos of the courtyard exits and the student pickup lanes.
The digital signature matches the private investigation firm Victor hired out of Las Vegas before his arrest.”
A sickening realization dawned on me,
hot and bitter as bile.
Victor and Julian were sitting in federal holding cells awaiting their formal trial next month,
stripped of their family assets,
their corporate shares,
and their freedom.
Yet like dying scorpions trapped in a jar,
they were still trying to strike with their severed tails,
spending their remaining hidden offshore cash to hire bottom-feeding mercenaries to probe the defenses around my babies.
“Marco,”
Nathan commanded,
his voice dropping into that terrifying,
subterranean register that brooked no failure.
“Box the Chrysler in at the east intersection by the eucalyptus grove.
Do not initiate a firefight in front of that school,
and do not let the driver swallow whatever burner SIM cards he has in his pocket.
I want the driver alive,
I want his phone decrypted,
and I want to know exactly which cell block in Phoenix paid for that surveillance.”
“Understood,
boss,”
Marco replied.
“The transport helicopter is already on the helipad atop your tower.
We will have the suspect secured in the private annex before your flight lands in Tucson.”
The line went dead with a soft click.
Nathan hung up the receiver,
turned to me,
and without saying a single word,
reached for his coat and my leather handbag.
We did not take the elevators through the main lobby;
we took the private express lift straight to the rooftop,
where the sleek,
black twin-engine Sikorsky helicopter was already whining to life,
its massive rotor blades slicing the desert air into concussive rhythmic thumps.
As the helicopter lifted off the skyscraper roof,
tilting southward toward the rugged blue wall of the Santa Catalina Mountains,
I leaned back against the leather seat,
staring down at the sprawling grid of Phoenix shrinking beneath us.
“They are never going to stop,
are they?”
I whispered,
my voice trembling slightly against the hum of the turbine engines.
“No matter how many contracts we sign,
no matter how many legitimate charities we build,
men like Victor and Garrett will always see Noah and Lily as targets to break us.”
Nathan reached across the cabin,
taking my trembling left hand into both of his large,
calloused palms,
lifting it to his lips to kiss the platinum ring that bound our lives together.
“They see them as targets because they know those children are my heart,
Emily,”
Nathan said softly,
his dark eyes burning with an ancient,
unshakeable vow.
“When I picked you up on Route 86 with forty-seven cents in your pocket,
I thought I was buying an alliance to satisfy my mother’s dying wish.
I didn’t know that a little boy with holes in his sneakers would teach me how to be a father,
or that a five-year-old girl would make me smile more in six months than I had in thirty-two years.”
He pulled me closer,
wrapping his arm around my shoulders as the shadow of the helicopter raced across the golden desert floor below.
“Victor thinks he can reach into my home from a prison cell,”
Nathan added,
his voice hardening into tempered steel.
May you like
“He is about to discover that when a man threatens my family,
prison walls do not keep him safe from me—they merely keep him cornered.”
