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The sound of Clara’s heavy metal brace hitting the marble floor echoed like a gunshot in the silent ballroom. / Chapter 3 / 8

Chapter 3 - THE BLOOD CONTRACT

"Hold your fire!" Serene screamed, running out onto the balcony above.

Marcus raised his hand, stopping the security team. He stepped into the courtyard, keeping his gun lowered at his side. The night air was abnormally warm, smelling faintly of ozone and burning pine.

"Who are you?" Marcus demanded, his voice hardening. "Who sent you? Julian Vance?"

Leo tilted his head, his eyes reflecting the pale moonlight. "No one sends the rain, Mr. Hale. It comes when the land is dry. I came because you made a vow."

"It was a figure of speech!" Marcus snapped. "You cured my kids, and I am willing to compensate you. Ten million dollars. A estate in Europe. Top tutors. Anything you want. But you will never wear the Hale name."

Leo stood up from the fountain. "Money is paper. A word is blood. If you reject the bond, the healing reverses."

Marcus froze. "What did you say?"

"The life force I gave your children came from the contract of family," Leo explained, taking a slow step toward Marcus. "If I am not their brother by law, the debt remains unpaid. Their legs will wither by sunrise."

"You little demon!" Vanessa pulled a pistol from her coat and aimed it directly at Leo's head. "I don't care what kind of trick you're pulling. You die here tonight!"

BANG!

Vanessa pulled the trigger.

Serene shrieked from the balcony. But the bullet never hit Leo. Two feet in front of the boy, the lead projectile flattened against an invisible wall, glowing red-hot before dropping uselessly to the cobblestones.

Vanessa staggered back, horrified.

Leo didn't even blink. He looked directly at Marcus. "Check your children's room, father."

Marcus didn't wait. He sprinted back into the mansion, taking the stairs three at a time. He burst into the twins' bedroom—and his heart stopped.

Noah and Clara were screaming in agony, writhing on their beds. Black, vein-like marks were spreading up from their ankles toward their chest.

"Daddy! It hurts! It burns!" Clara cried, her face pale as ash.

Marcus fell to his knees beside the bed. The black veins were identical to the necrotizing nerve disease the doctors had warned him about years ago.

"Stop it!" Marcus roared, rushing back to the balcony and glaring down at Leo. "STOP IT!"

"Sign the papers," Leo said, his voice echoing through the courtyard as if amplified by the wind itself. "Adopt me into the Hale bloodline, or watch your legacy rot before dawn."

Vanessa grabbed Marcus’s arm. "Don't do it, Marcus! It's extortion! If you put him on the family register, he gains 15% voting rights upon turning eighteen!"

"THEY ARE MY CHILDREN, VANESSA!" Marcus screamed, shoving his sister violently to the floor.

He turned to his head attorney who was standing terrified in the doorway. "Draft the adoption papers right now! Emergency court filing! Use our government contacts! DO IT NOW!"

Thirty minutes later, under the dim light of the holding room, Marcus signed his name on the legal documents, stamping them with the official seal of the Hale family.

Leo signed his name below Marcus’s with a simple feather pen, leaving a smudge of dirt on the parchment.

The instant the ink dried, the screaming upstairs stopped.

Marcus rushed back up. The black veins on Noah and Clara were fading away. They fell into a deep, peaceful sleep once more.

When Marcus returned down to the grand foyer, Leo was sitting on the velvet sofa, swinging his dirty feet over the side.

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"Good night, Father," Leo said softly, closing his eyes.

Marcus stood there, staring at the boy who was now legally his eldest son. He had saved his children, but as he looked at the dark smile creeping across Vanessa’s face in the corner of the room, Marcus knew he had just signed a declaration of war.

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