Chapter 4 - The Black-Market Nursery
Three levels beneath the luxury hotel, the air was cold, damp, and smelled of wet concrete and ozone.
Mallerie walked beside Gideon down a narrow subterranean corridor lined with exposed conduit pipes. Two heavily armed guards in tactical gear flanked them, their footsteps rhythmically echoing against the walls. Mallerie had insisted on coming; she refused to sit upstairs while answers were being uncovered. Owen remained on the penthouse floor under the watchful eyes of Dr. Vance and a team of vetted security specialists.
Gideon pushed open a heavy steel fire door.
Inside the windowless room, the man who had worn the fake Thomas Avery nametag was strapped to a metal chair. His face was bruised, his lip split, and his gray hotel uniform vest lay torn on the floor. Marcus, Gideon’s chief of security—a scarred, towering ex-military operative—stood over him with his sleeves rolled up.
“He’s stubborn, boss,” Marcus reported without looking around. “Burner phone was encrypted with Russian algorithmic keys. No standard identification.”
Gideon walked slowly toward the captive, his hands resting casually inside his trouser pockets. The aura around him shifted instantly; the reserved, protective father from upstairs vanished, replaced by the apex predator of the Eastern seaboard underworld.
“You have five minutes to give me a reason not to drop you into the Hudson River inside a steel drum,” Gideon stated plainly.
The man spat a mouthful of blood onto the concrete. “Go to hell, Vale. You don’t own this town anymore. There are bigger players moving in.”
Gideon didn’t blink. He gave a slight nod to Marcus.
Marcus stepped forward and pressed a heavy tactical thumb directly into the nerve cluster behind the man’s collarbone. The prisoner let out a strangled shriek, his heels drumming frantically against the floor.
“Wait,” Mallerie’s voice cut through the room.
Gideon turned an eyebrow toward her. “Mallerie, wait in the hall.”
“No,” she said, stepping around Marcus to stand directly in front of the bound man. She leaned down until she was level with his bloodshot eyes. “Look at me.”
The operative glared at her, breathing heavily.
“You wore the badge of a twenty-two-year-old banquet busser named Thomas Avery,” Mallerie said with icy precision. “Thomas is a sweet kid whose grandmother lives in Queens. You swapped badges in the locker room during the dinner shift. Which means you had a keycard to the basement locker facility.”
She reached down, grabbed the hem of his undershirt, and yanked it upward. On his right hip was a faded ink tattoo of a stylized anchor crossed with an iron caduceus.
Mallerie gasped. “The crest.”
Gideon stepped beside her. “You know that mark?”
“St. Jude’s Memorial,” Mallerie whispered, horror dawning across her features. “The private donor wing. The maritime charity foundation that funded the maternal ward where I gave birth. That was the logo stamped on every intake sheet, every nurse’s clipboard.”
Gideon’s eyes locked onto the prisoner. “Dr. Arthur Bennett didn't run a simple adoption scam. It was an organized ring operating out of the hospital foundation.”
The prisoner’s eyes flickered with panic. Seeing that his cover was blown, his defiance shattered. “I don't know the doctors! I swear to God! I’m just recovery team! We got a call two hours ago from a burner exchange. They said the girl—the Reed girl—was seen holding the baby at the gala. They said if Vale figured out the connection, the entire operation would burn. My orders were to extract the infant and eliminate the woman on the street.”
Mallerie felt a cold shiver race down her spine. They hadn't just tried to kidnap Owen; they had planned to murder her to keep their secret safe.
“Who pays you?” Gideon demanded, his voice dropping dangerously low.
“The board!” the man stammered, sweating profusely. “The maritime foundation is a front! It’s run through an offshore trust called Vanguard Maritime. It supplies healthy infants to elite buyers—politicians, foreign oligarchs, people who pay seven figures for untraceable babies with clean health records. Your sister Clara... she threatened to blow the whistle when she realized the baby she bought wasn't an orphan from an abandoned clinic. She tried to return him to the real mother!”
“So you staged her car accident,” Gideon growled.
“I didn't do that! That was higher up! They used an electronic kill switch on her steering module!” The man began sobbing openly. “That’s all I know! I swear, that’s all I know!”
Gideon stared down at the man for three heartbeats. He turned to Marcus. “Hand him to federal custody through our confidential contact at the DOJ. Let them trace the bank accounts. But keep our name off the wire.”
“Understood, boss.”
Gideon took Mallerie’s arm and led her out of the holding cell. As the steel door slammed shut behind them, Mallerie leaned against the concrete wall, trembling from head to toe.
May you like
“Clara died trying to do the right thing,” Mallerie said softly.
“Yes,” Gideon murmured, his expression grim. “And now the people who killed my sister and stole your child know that you are alive, and that Owen is in my hands. The war has started, Mallerie.”
