Chapter 9 - The Long Road HomeForty-eight hours had passed since the siege of Blackwood Estate.
Vincent Cross was locked away in a maximum-security federal federal penitentiary, awaiting trial on dozens of counts of racketeering, federal conspiracy, and attempted murder. His entire criminal network was being systematically dismantled by federal prosecutors using the encryption core Emma had carried in her apron.
The Blackwood syndicate was secure, but my world had irrevocably changed.
Right now, I wasn't sitting behind my mahogany desk reviewing ledgers of blood and money. I was sitting on the plush rug of the estate’s private library, helping Emma build a massive fortress out of wooden blocks.
She giggled as a tower of blocks wobbled and crashed to the floor, her infectious laughter echoing through the high-ceilinged room.
"You're terrible at architecture, Mr. Wolf Eyes," she teased, flashing a bright, gap-toothed smile.
I chuckled, leaning back against the sofa. "Hey, my structural engineering skills are top-tier. It's the building materials that are flawed."
Just then, the heavy oak doors of the library slowly creaked open.
Harold stood in the doorway, his face unusually pale, holding a secure tablet in his hands. He looked at me with an expression of profound shock—something I had rarely seen on my hardened head of security.
"Boss," Harold said, his voice slightly trembling. "You need to see this."
I stood up immediately, stepping away from Emma, who went back to playing with her stuffed rabbit. I walked over to Harold in the hallway, closing the heavy doors behind me.
"What is it?" I demanded.
"The federal marshals handling the safehouse raids in upstate New York... they just cleared a secondary medical facility linked to Cross's shell companies."
Harold turned the tablet toward me.
The screen displayed a live body-cam feed from a federal agent walking through a sterile, white-tiled medical ward. Cots lined the walls, filled with rescued witnesses and informants whom Cross had kept hidden away.
And then, the camera panned toward a makeshift recovery bed in the corner of the room.
A woman lay there, pale and weak, her IV bags dripping slowly. Her hair was messy, and she looked desperately thin, but when she turned her face toward the camera as the federal agent spoke to her...
My heart completely stopped beating.
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It was Clara.
She was alive.
