Chapter 15 - The Blood Market of Whispering Pines
Daniel didn't run. He slammed Noah into Rosa’s arms, kicked open the adjoining bathroom door, and shoved them toward the small rear frosted-glass window that led into the back alley.
"Go! Take the Explorer keys! Drive north to Crescent City and do not stop until you hit the state police barracks!" Daniel ordered, his voice an iron blade.
"I am not leaving you, Señor Daniel!" Rosa cried, tears streaming down her weathered cheeks.
"You have to protect him!" Daniel hissed, kissing Noah’s forehead one last time. "Noah, listen to Rosa. Daddy will meet you at the station. Run!"
He helped Rosa hoist Noah through the window into the drenched alleyway, watched them disappear behind the metal dumpsters, and turned back to face the front door.
The front door opened before Daniel could chamber a round.
Julian Vance stepped into the motel room, shaking the rain from his umbrella with elegant nonchalance. He closed the door behind him and locked the deadbolt. Standing behind him in the doorway were two private military contractors in tactical gear, submachine guns resting against their plate carriers.
"You look tired, Daniel," Vance said smoothly, removing his leather gloves. "Grief never did suit you. Claire always said you lacked the stomach for tragedy."
Daniel kept the Glock leveled at the center of Vance’s forehead. "Tell your dogs to drop their weapons, or your brains will decorate that mirror."
Vance smiled, a cold, clinical sneer. "Shoot me, and the drone circling above this block fires an air-to-ground missile into that charming 2012 Ford Explorer turning onto Highway 101 as we speak. Rosa is a terrible driver in the rain, Daniel. Do you really want Noah’s last seconds to be an explosion on a coastal bypass?"
Daniel’s finger remained frozen on the trigger. His knuckles trembled. "You were Claire’s doctor. She trusted you. I paid you five hundred thousand dollars to save her."
"You paid me five hundred thousand to give her an easy death," Vance said coldly, sitting down on the motel desk chair as if he were attending a board meeting. "Claire discovered the trust amendment. She found out that Evelyn’s father had bequeathed fifty-one percent of Montgomery Biotech to Evelyn’s firstborn child—not to Evelyn herself. My sister was never meant to inherit. The old man knew she was a sociopath. He left the empire to the next generation."
Vance leaned forward, his eyes gleaming with psychotic ambition. "Evelyn couldn't keep a child. Her uterus was scarred from three botched procedures in her twenties. So she needed a host—a surrogate of high pedigree. Claire was genetically flawless. But Claire’s eggs were useless. So Evelyn provided the egg, you provided the sperm, and Claire carried the boy thinking he was her miracle baby."
"You killed Claire," Daniel growled, tears of pure rage burning his eyes.
May you like
"Claire killed herself the moment she threatened to take the boy and go to the FBI," Vance countered. "Evelyn simply... expedited the process. And now, Daniel, you are going to make a simple business transaction. Sign the parental rights transfer, and Noah lives a life of unimaginable luxury under my guardianship. Refuse... and you both die in a tragic, unresolved murder-suicide."
***
