Chapter 17 - Bloodlines and Lies
The room seemed to tilt on its axis.
Claire had signed adoption papers before Emily was even born.
The entire marriage.
The entire life we built in that sprawling house on the hill.
Was any of it real?
Or was I simply selected as a respectable, clean-cut husband to provide a legitimate paternal cover for Arthur Sterling’s grand financial vehicle?
I stared at the spinning reels of the cassette tape.
My father's voice continued, slower now, weaker.
"Claire got scared after the birth, David."
"She fell in love with Emily. The mother in her fought against the criminal."
"She tried to run away from Arthur's network, which is why she begged you to keep Emily away from her family."
"She was terrified that if Arthur ever saw the child, he would claim his property."
"I hid the adoption deed in Continental Trust. But Evelyn has copies."
"If Arthur files those papers with a corrupt judge in Quebec, international custody laws will make it nearly impossible to get Emily back."
"Do not let them take her across the border, David."
"Kill them if you have to."
The tape ended with a long, steady hiss of silence.
I dropped my head onto the table, my hands trembling against the polished pine.
My father wasn't a hero.
He was an accomplice who grew a conscience too late.
And Claire wasn't just a victim.
She was the architect of the very cage that was closing around our daughter.
Suddenly, a low thump sounded from the porch outside.
I sprang up from the chair, drawing my father's knife and a 9mm pistol Marcus had handed me before we left the city.
The floorboards above creaked.
"Daddy?" Emily’s voice called down, small and terrified.
"Stay upstairs, Emily!" I yelled.
The front window shattered in an explosion of tempered glass.
A smoke canister rolled across the wooden floor, hissing dense white chemical fog into the room.
The front door was kicked off its hinges with a deafening crash.
Two men in tactical helmets rushed through the smoke, their assault rifles raised.
"Drop the weapon!" one shouted in a flat, mechanical voice.
I fired three rounds toward the threshold.
One man collapsed backward into the gravel.
The second man lunged, striking my shoulder with the butt of his rifle.
Pain exploded down my arm, and the pistol went flying across the floor.
Before I could recover, a heavy hand grabbed the back of my neck and slammed my forehead into the stone hearth.
Stars danced across my vision.
Blood poured down my brow, blinding my left eye.
Through the ringing in my ears, I heard Emily screaming from the top of the stairs.
"Daddy! Daddy, please!"
A woman stepped over the shattered glass of the entrance.
It wasn't Evelyn.
It was Claire.
She wore a dark coat, her face smeared with dried tears, her eyes wide with frantic, manic panic.
"Emily!" Claire screamed, running toward the stairs.
"Come to Mommy! Hurry, we have to go!"
"No!" Emily sobbed, retreating into the bedroom.
"You let the bad men in! Daddy said you were bad!"
Claire stopped at the landing, her hands shaking, her chest heaving.
Behind her, another figure stepped through the ruined doorway.
An old man in a black cashmere coat, walking with a silver-tipped cane, his breathing accompanied by the rhythmic wheeze of a portable oxygen tank wheeled by an orderly.
May you like
Arthur Sterling had arrived.
***
