Chapter 1 - THE BLOODLINE OF THE WOLFThe sound of the monitor flatlining was not a beep. It was a dying star.
“Code Blue!” Dr. Lawson screamed, her voice cracking as she lunged toward the bed, shoving me aside with a desperation that meant Hannah had already crossed the threshold into the dark. “Crash cart! Now! Push two milligrams of epinephrine!”
The room disintegrated into a blur of violent motion. Nurses swarmed the bed. Defibrillator pads were ripped from their casing, glowing with lethal potential.
“Clear!”
A jolt of electricity slammed through Hannah’s frail body, lifting her off the mattress before she slumped back down. The monitor didn't change. Just a flat, mocking, unbroken green line stretching across the dark screen, accompanied by a tone that vibrated straight through my skull.
My brother.
Julian.
The name wasn't just a betrayal; it was a death warrant. For three years, I had kept Julian at arm's length, believing my distance was enough to keep him from destroying the one pure thing I had left. I had handed him my shares in the shipping empire. I had let him take the high-rises, the high-stakes political connections, the public spotlight. I had even let him think he had outmaneuvered me when I walked away from the Callahan conglomerate with nothing but the clothes on my back and the enemies nipping at my heels.
I let him have the throne so Hannah could live in peace.
And he had hunted her down anyway.
“Jack, get back!” Ryan shouted, grabbing my shoulder as I stepped toward the bed, my fists balled so tightly my fingernails bit into my palms, drawing blood.
“They’re losing her, Ryan,” I whispered, my voice sounding like grinding stones. “If she dies, Julian dies slow. I’ll peel his empire away piece by piece, and then I’ll feed him to the dockworkers in Red Hook.”
“Sir—Dr. Lawson is getting a rhythm!”
I snapped my gaze back to the bed. Dr. Lawson’s hands were slick with sweat as she performed chest compressions, her elbows locked, throwing her weight down onto Hannah’s chest with merciless precision.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
“Come on, Hannah,” I muttered, stepping forward, ignoring Ryan’s grip. “Don't you dare quit on me. You called me a coward when I signed those papers. Prove it. Prove I’m the coward by surviving this.”
BEEP.
A weak, erratic pulse flickered back onto the screen.
“We got her back!” a nurse panted, wiping her brow. “Blood pressure is bottomed out at sixty over forty. She’s bleeding internally—rapid placental abruption. If we don’t deliver this baby right now, both of them are going into cardiac arrest permanently.”
Dr. Lawson whipped around, her eyes locking onto mine with terrifying clarity. “Mr. Callahan, listen to me very carefully. Your ex-wife is suffering from advanced toxemia and internal trauma. We can save the mother or we can try to save the child, but doing both is a razor’s edge. Make a call.”
The room went dead silent except for the frantic rhythm of the heart monitor.
Hannah’s hand, resting over her stomach, twitched. Her pale eyelids fluttered, just for a fraction of a second, as if she could hear us through the fog of death.
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“You save them both,” I said, stepping right into Dr. Lawson’s personal space, my voice dropping into that dark, heavy register that made seasoned mob bosses look at the floor. “Or I burn this hospital to the ground and build my own research ward over the ashes. Am I understood?”
Dr. Lawson didn't blink. She was a woman who had seen monsters before. “Prep OR three! Move!”
