Chapter 3 - The Man Who Buried a Newborn
The shooting ended in less than ninety seconds.
It felt like an hour.
Marcus’s men sealed the garden while two guards carried me into the mansion.
Lily refused to let go of my hand.
She walked beside the wheelchair, wet from the shattered fountain, her teddy bear pressed beneath one arm.
“Is he dead?” she asked.
“The attacker escaped,” Marcus said.
“That’s not what I asked.”
Marcus glanced at me.
“The guard Mr. Marino shot is alive.”
Lily looked at the pistol resting across my lap.
“You said you only shoot people who try to kill you.”
“He tried.”
“Okay.”
She accepted the answer with unsettling calm.
Elena did not.
“This is why I stayed away,” she said as we entered the medical room. “Violence follows you everywhere.”
I held Lily’s gaze.
“Violence found her before she ever found me.”
Elena had no reply.
Dr. Evelyn Shaw arrived twenty minutes later.
She was sixty, silver-haired, and one of the few physicians who spoke to me without fear.
She cleaned the cut on my shoulder, then examined my right leg.
“Move your foot.”
“I already told you. It happened once.”
“Try again.”
Lily stood beside the examination table.
“Use the song.”
Evelyn glanced at her.
“What song?”
“The one I danced to.”
“No music,” I said.
Lily folded her arms.
“You’re scared.”
I looked at her.
“Of what?”
“That it won’t move again.”
Evelyn raised an eyebrow.
“She knows you well.”
“She has known me for one hour.”
“And apparently that was sufficient.”
Lily placed the speaker on the counter.
The same cheerful song filled the room.
I stared at my right shoe.
Nothing happened.
My jaw tightened.
“Again,” Evelyn said.
I focused on the faint sensation in my ankle.
For eight years, my brain had sent commands into silence.
Move.
Nothing.
Move.
A pulse ran down my calf.
My shoe shifted.
Lily gasped.
Evelyn crouched immediately.
“Do it again.”
I did.
This time, the toes moved visibly beneath the leather.
Marcus stared.
“How is that possible?”
Evelyn stood.
“It is too early to say. His spinal cord may not have been completely severed. Scar tissue, inflammation, or dormant neural pathways could explain partial recovery.”
“Ninety-nine doctors said it was impossible,” I replied.
“Ninety-nine doctors did not see this.”
Lily beamed at me.
“I told you dancing helps.”
I almost laughed.
Evelyn opened a sealed medical kit.
“Now for the DNA test.”
She swabbed the inside of Lily’s cheek, then mine.
“How long?” I asked.
“With the private laboratory, four hours.”
“Make it two.”
“Biology does not care who you are.”
“Everyone cares who I am.”
“Your cells do not.”
Lily giggled.
Evelyn sealed both samples.
Marcus handed them to two guards.
“Take separate vehicles. No stops. Do not communicate the route.”
When they left, Marcus placed a photograph on the table.
Security cameras had captured a blurred image of the attacker escaping across the roof.
I recognized the square shoulders and silver hair.
“No,” I said.
Marcus nodded grimly.
“We enhanced three frames.”
The man wore a black tactical jacket, but the side of his face was visible.
Vincent Marino.
My uncle.
My mentor.
The man who had placed his hand on my shoulder at Audrey’s funeral and promised to protect what remained of my family.
Lily looked at the photograph.
“Who is he?”
“My uncle.”
“Why did he shoot at us?”
“I intend to ask him.”
Elena stepped forward.
“You can’t let Lily stay here.”
“She is safer inside this estate than anywhere else.”
“A man just fired through your roof.”
“And failed.”
“Next time he may not.”
“There will not be a next time.”
The coldness in my voice made Ben step backward.
Lily noticed.
She noticed everything.
“What are you going to do to your uncle?” she asked.
I looked at her small face.
The truthful answer was not appropriate for a child.
“I’m going to find out what he did.”
“And then?”
“And then I will make sure he cannot hurt you again.”
She watched me for several seconds.
“Don’t become worse than him.”
No soldier, priest, or judge had ever spoken to me that way.
I looked down at Audrey’s necklace, still resting in my palm.
“I will try.”
Marcus’s phone vibrated.
“We found Vincent’s car near the north wall. He changed vehicles.”
“Check the harbor.”
“He knows we will.”
“That is why he will go there. Vincent always believes he is smarter than everyone else.”
A guard entered.
“Sir, we caught someone accessing the estate’s camera controls.”
“Who?”
“Thomas Reed.”
Thomas was one of my senior security officers. He had worked for me for six years.
“Bring him downstairs,” I said.
Lily looked at the door.
“Where is downstairs?”
“Somewhere you are not going.”
“Is it a dungeon?”
“No.”
Marcus cleared his throat.
I glanced at him.
“It is not officially a dungeon.”
Lily’s eyes widened.
Elena picked up the speaker.
“That is enough for today.”
“I want to stay with him.”
The words surprised everyone, including Lily.
She looked at me, suddenly uncertain.
I did not trust myself to answer quickly.
“You may stay in the family wing,” I said. “You and Elena will have adjoining rooms.”
“Do I have to call you Dad?”
“No.”
“What should I call you?”
“Caleb.”
“Mom says children shouldn’t call adults by their first name.”
“Mr. Marino, then.”
“That sounds like a teacher.”
“It has never been used that way.”
She considered her options.
“I’ll call you Caleb until the test comes back.”
Elena sighed.
“Of course you will.”
Marcus pushed my wheelchair toward the elevator.
“Evelyn, stay with them.”
Lily walked after us.
“Where are you going?”
“To speak with Thomas.”
“In the dungeon?”
I pressed the elevator button.
“Go with your mother.”
She stared at me.
“Come back.”
It was a simple request.
Yet no one had said those words to me in years.
People assumed I would return because they feared what would happen if I did not.
Lily wanted me to return because she had only just found me.
“I will,” I said.
The elevator descended beneath the mansion.
Thomas Reed sat in a metal chair inside the interrogation room. His wrists were secured to the table.
Blood ran from his nose.
I looked at Marcus.
“I did not authorize that.”
“He resisted.”
Thomas lifted his head.
“You should have stayed broken, Caleb.”
Marcus moved forward, but I stopped him.
“Who paid you?”
Thomas laughed.
“You still think this is about money?”
“Everything is about money eventually.”
“Vincent said you would believe that.”
I placed Audrey’s necklace on the table.
Thomas’s smile disappeared.
“You recognize it.”
He looked away.
“Where is Vincent?”
“You’ll never reach him.”
“Where is he?”
“He has the records.”
“What records?”
Thomas leaned closer.
“The hospital files. Audrey’s treatment reports. The vehicle inspection. Everything that proves the accident was planned.”
My blood turned cold.
“Vincent caused the crash?”
“He needed you alive but weak.”
“Why?”
“Because your father’s will gave you control of the organization. Vincent couldn’t remove you without starting a civil war.”
“So he put me in a wheelchair.”
“He was supposed to kill Audrey before she reached the hospital. The pregnancy complicated things.”
My fingers closed around the necklace.
“And the baby?”
“He ordered her death because she would inherit everything if you died.”
Marcus slammed both hands on the table.
“Where is Vincent?”
Thomas smiled through his blood.
“Leaving the country.”
“From where?”
“The old shipyard.”
I turned my chair toward the door.
Thomas called after me.
“You’re too late.”
I stopped.
“What did you say?”
“He took the girl’s real birth certificate and Audrey’s final recording.”
I looked back.
“What recording?”
Thomas’s smile widened.
“Your wife survived long enough to tell the truth.”
I crossed the room so quickly that one wheel struck the table.
“What truth?”
“She knew Vincent had arranged the crash. She named everyone involved.”
“Where is the recording?”
“With Vincent.”
Thomas began laughing.
Then the lights went out.
A gunshot exploded in the darkness.
When the emergency lights flickered on, Thomas was slumped over the table.
A bullet hole marked the center of his forehead.
Marcus drew his weapon and turned toward the observation window.
The glass was shattered.
Someone inside my own mansion had silenced him.
My phone rang.
The caller ID displayed Vincent’s name.
I answered.
His voice was calm.
“You always were slow to understand the board, Caleb.”
“You stole my daughter.”
“I saved the empire from a cripple and an infant.”
“You murdered Audrey.”
“She was never meant to reach the hospital.”
I gripped the phone so tightly my knuckles whitened.
“Where are you?”
“Close enough to see the lights in your garden.”
Behind me, Marcus began issuing orders.
Vincent continued.
“You have something I need.”
“What?”
“The girl.”
My entire body went still.
“And you have something I want,” I said.
“A recording made by a dying woman?”
“Bring it to the harbor.”
He laughed.
“You cannot even stand.”
“My legs never made me dangerous.”
“No. But they made you proud.”
A faint scream sounded in the background.
A woman’s scream.
I recognized Elena’s voice.
I turned toward Marcus.
His face changed as he checked his radio.
“Family wing is not responding.”
Vincent spoke again.
“Come to Pier Seventeen alone, or the woman who raised your daughter dies before midnight.”
The call ended.
Marcus reached for the elevator controls.
“We lock down the building.”
“No.”
“Caleb, this is a trap.”
“Of course it is.”
“You cannot go alone.”
I looked at my right foot.
Then I made it move.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
An inch across the footrest.
“Prepare the car,” I said. “And find Lily before Vincent’s men do.”
Upstairs, an alarm began to scream.
A guard’s voice burst through Marcus’s radio.
“Mr. Vale, Lily is missing.”
The elevator doors opened.
A small teddy bear lay in the empty hallway.
May you like
Around its neck was a note written in black ink.
BRING THE HARBOR KING TO PIER SEVENTEEN
