Chapter 8 - THE MAN IN BLUE SCRUBSI ran.
The elevator doors closed before I reached them.
I hit the call button.
Nothing.
“Stairs!” Ortiz shouted.
We tore down two flights.
Hospital security locked exterior doors.
Reynolds called every agent in the building.
The elevator stopped at the basement.
We reached the corridor thirty seconds later.
Empty incubator.
No baby.
A side door stood open.
Outside, an ambulance was pulling away.
Stolen vehicle.
Reynolds shouted into her radio.
State police initiated roadblocks.
I stood staring at the empty incubator.
My daughter had been alive for less than an hour.
Victor had taken her.
Ortiz grabbed my shoulders.
“Ethan. Look at me.”
“I’m going to kill him.”
“That’s exactly what he expects.”
“He has my daughter.”
“And we get her back by thinking.”
I hated her for being right.
Then Samuel called.
Not through the police.
Directly to me.
“I know where he’s going.”
“How?”
“Dad always had a contingency site.”
“Where?”
“Old Blackwood airfield near Farmville.”
Reynolds overheard.
“Private runway?”
Samuel nodded through the phone.
“He keeps a plane there.”
Federal aviation authorities were alerted.
The stolen ambulance was found fifteen miles from the hospital.
Empty.
Security footage from a gas station showed Victor transferring Evelyn’s portable neonatal carrier into a black van.
Another man drove.
Nathan.
But Nathan had supposedly been arrested.
Reynolds checked.
Not Nathan.
The footage only looked like him.
Samuel studied a still image.
“That’s our cousin Thomas.”
Another Blackwood.
Another loyalist.
The family network was wider than we knew.
We drove toward the airfield.
Every mile felt like punishment.
I imagined Evelyn cold.
Unable to breathe.
Too small.
Too fragile.
NICU staff told us the portable carrier had oxygen and battery support for roughly two hours.
After that, she needed specialized care.
Victor had a deadline now too.
We reached the airfield forty-six minutes later.
The hangar doors were open.
A small jet sat on the runway.
Its engines were starting.
Agents surrounded the field.
Victor stood beside the plane holding Evelyn’s carrier.
Even from fifty yards away, I could see her tiny face inside.
Reynolds used a loudspeaker.
“Victor Blackwood! Put the infant down!”
Victor laughed.
His phone rang in my pocket.
I answered.
“You surrounded yourself,” I said.
“No. I surrounded you.”
Then explosions erupted behind us.
Not bombs.
Fuel drums.
Enough to create chaos.
Agents scattered.
Smoke covered the field.
Victor moved toward the jet.
I ran through it.
Reynolds shouted my name.
I ignored her.
Victor reached the stairs.
I caught him before he boarded.
He held the carrier in front of him.
“Stop.”
I stopped instantly.
“You won’t risk her.”
“No.”
“That’s why you lose.”
“No, Victor.”
I looked at him.
“That’s why Claire wins.”
His face twisted.
“You think this ends because your wife sent some files?”
“It ends because your sons are talking.”
That hit him.
“Daniel gave a statement.”
Silence.
“Owen too.”
“You’re lying.”
“Samuel has been helping investigators for weeks.”
Victor’s eyes changed.
The empire he built on family loyalty was collapsing because his own children finally stopped being afraid.
“You made all of them afraid of you,” I said. “You confused that with love.”
Victor backed toward the jet.
Behind him, someone appeared in the doorway.
Daniel.
Victor froze.
“Son?”
Daniel held his hands where agents could see them.
“Give Ethan the baby.”
Victor’s face softened.
“You don’t understand what they’ll do to us.”
“I understand exactly what you did to Claire.”
“I protected this family.”
“You almost killed her.”
“I built everything for you boys.”
Daniel shook his head.
“No. You built a prison and called it an inheritance.”
Victor’s eyes filled with something close to panic.
He looked at me.
Then at Daniel.
Then down at Evelyn.
For a terrifying moment, I thought he might hurt her.
Instead, a tiny sound came from the carrier.
A weak cry.
Victor flinched.
That single distraction was enough.
Daniel grabbed the carrier.
I drove Victor into the ground.
Agents surrounded us.
Handcuffs clicked.
I barely noticed.
I took Evelyn.
She weighed almost nothing.
Her tiny hand moved beneath the blanket.
“Daddy’s here.”
Those words nearly destroyed me.
Paramedics rushed her back toward an ambulance.
Victor lay restrained on the pavement.
He stared at Daniel.
“You betrayed your father.”
Daniel looked back.
“No.”
“You did.”
Daniel’s voice trembled.
“I finally became Claire’s brother.”
Then Victor was taken away.
I rode with Evelyn back to St. Catherine’s.
By morning, she was stable again.
Claire remained unconscious.
I sat between two hospital rooms.
My daughter in one.
My wife in another.
The empire was falling.
The danger should have been over.
Then Reynolds entered with one final file.
“We found something in Claire’s archive.”
“What?”
“A document she apparently didn’t know was there.”
She placed it in front of me.
It was a laboratory report.
DNA testing.
Claire Blackwood.
Victor Blackwood.
Probability of biological paternity:
0.00%.
I already knew that.
Then Reynolds turned the page.
A second comparison.
Claire Blackwood.
Robert Mercer.
My father.
Probability of biological relationship:
99.98%.
I stared at the name.
“No.”
Reynolds said nothing.
“My father died twelve years ago.”
“I know.”
I looked toward Claire’s room.
My wife was somehow connected biologically to my father.
May you like
And if the report meant what I feared—
everything about our marriage might be built on a truth neither of us had ever known.
