Chapter 3 - THE CODE RED SHADOW
My fingers turned to ice.
I stared at the glowing phone screen.
The text was still there.
We saw the black card ping at Boston Children's. You should have stayed dead, Clare.
My pulse pounded in my ears like a sledgehammer.
Five years.
Five years of living off cash, buying secondhand clothes, renting under a dead grandmother’s maiden name.
One single transaction.
Ninety-six thousand dollars to save Leo’s life.
And the monsters from our past were already awake.
I looked down the sterile corridor.
Adrien had just walked into the donor room to bleed for our son.
Two of his personal bodyguards stood at the end of the hall.
Broad shoulders.
Dark overcoats.
Earpieces coiled behind their ears.
They watched every person stepping off the elevators.
I didn't know if I could trust them.
Five years ago, Victor Moretti had his own men stationed outside my bedroom door.
Those same men had let the brake lines be cut.
My heart hammered against my ribs.
Julian.
Noah.
They were still in the second-floor apartment on Fourth Street.
Mrs. Higgins was seventy-two years old and walked with a cane.
She had baked them blueberry muffins when I left at dawn.
She thought I was running an errand at the clinic.
She didn't know someone with a sniper rifle might be watching the fire escape.
I dialed Mrs. Higgins’ landline.
It rang once.
Twice.
Three times.
Every second felt like an hour submerged in freezing water.
"Pick up," I pleaded under my breath. "Please, pick up."
"Hello?" Mrs. Higgins' raspy voice crackled over the line.
Air rushed back into my lungs.
"Mrs. Higgins, it’s Clare."
"Oh, darling! How is little Leo? Did the doctor give him the medicine?"
"The surgery is happening right now," I said, keeping my voice low and level. "Where are the boys?"
"Julian is building a fort out of sofa cushions. Noah is drawing a picture of an airplane."
"Listen to me very carefully," I whispered.
"Clare? What's wrong, dear?"
"Lock the front deadbolt. Close the chain latch. Pull down the heavy curtains in the living room."
There was a pause.
"Clare... you're scaring me."
"Don't turn on the lights. Take the boys into the rear pantry behind the kitchen. If anyone knocks, do not answer."
"What about the police?"
"No one, Mrs. Higgins. Not even someone in a uniform. I am coming back right now."
"What about Leo?"
"His father is with him."
I hung up before she could ask who his father was.
I turned back toward the donor room.
The door opened.
Adrien stepped out.
He had a white gauze pad taped to the crook of his elbow.
His face was drawn, drained of color, but his stride was purposeful.
He saw the look on my face immediately.
He didn't ask if something was wrong.
He closed the distance between us in three long strides.
"What happened?" he demanded.
I didn't speak.
I held up the phone screen.
Adrien took the device from my hand.
He read the single sentence.
I watched the muscles in his jaw turn to granite.
His eyes, already cold, became something terrifying.
"Where are Julian and Noah?" he asked.
His voice was dead calm.
The kind of calm that comes before an artillery barrage.
"Fourth Street," I said. "South Boston."
"Call your neighbor. Tell her—"
"I already did. They’re in the pantry."
Adrien looked over his shoulder.
"Miller! Hayes!"
The two security men moved instantly, their shoes squeaking against the wax.
"Sir?"
"Lock down this floor," Adrien ordered. "Nobody enters this surgical wing without biometric clearance. Put four armed men outside operating room three."
"Understood, Mr. Moretti."
"If anyone without hospital credentials takes two steps past those elevators, put them down."
Miller nodded, unbuttoning his coat to reveal the shoulder holster beneath.
"Where are we going?" I asked, trembling.
Adrien grabbed my hand.
His grip was fierce, burning hot against my freezing skin.
"We are going to get our sons," he said.
We took the private service elevator down to the basement parking deck.
A black armored SUV sat idling near the boiler room doors.
A driver sat behind the wheel.
Adrien shoved me into the passenger side, climbed into the back, and slammed the door.
"Fourth Street," Adrien told the driver. "Burn every red light."
The engine roared.
The heavy tires squealed against the slick concrete.
We burst out into the pouring rain.
The wipers slapped violently against the windshield.
Boston was a blur of gray buildings, flashing brake lights, and sheets of water.
Adrien dialed a number on his private phone.
"Frank," he said. "The black card I issued five years ago to Clare Moretti was charged twenty minutes ago."
He paused, listening.
His knuckles turned white on the phone.
"I don't care about the banking protocols," Adrien growled. "Who authorized the alert routing to outside terminals?"
Another pause.
"Victor?" Adrien’s voice dropped into a register that made the hair on my arms stand up. "My uncle had a sub-notification ping configured on the card?"
He looked across the seat at me.
His eyes held a darkness I had never witnessed before.
"He told me you stole that card when you ran," Adrien whispered. "He told me you cleaned out the offshore accounts and fled to Europe with a lover."
"I never touched a single cent of your money," I said, choking back tears. "I worked double shifts at a dry cleaner's."
Adrien closed his eyes for a second.
A shudder ran through his massive chest.
"I built an empire on blood and logistics," he muttered. "And I let a snake guard my door."
The SUV lurched around a corner, skidding slightly on the wet cobblestones of South Boston.
"Two blocks out," the driver announced.
I leaned forward, peering through the rain-streaked window.
The narrow street was lined with triple-decker wooden houses.
At the end of the block, in front of my building, two black sedans were parked at an angle.
Their hazard lights were blinking through the mist.
Three men in dark raincoats stood on my front porch.
May you like
The wooden door was splintered open.
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