Chapter 10
The room was illuminated only by the pale amber glow of a small bedside lamp.
The walls were bare concrete painted off-white, stripped of mirrors, picture frames, or sharp edges. The single window looking out over the Hudson River was reinforced with heavy steel bars.
Sitting on the edge of the narrow hospital bed, wrapped in a coarse gray wool blanket, was Clara.
Her honey-blonde hair had grown past her shoulders, tangled and dull from years without sunlight, and her fair skin was paper-thin over high, hollow cheekbones. But the eyes—wide, luminous, and burning with a mother’s feral will to survive—were unmistakable.
When the heavy oak door swung open, Clara flinched, pulling the blanket tight around her throat.
Then she saw the overcoat. She saw the signet ring.
And she saw the child nestled against his chest.
"Dulcie..." The name tore from Clara’s throat not as a shout, but as a ragged, broken sob that carried three years of weeping in a single breath.
"Mommy!" Dulcie cried, squirming in Bramwell’s arms.
Bramwell stepped to the edge of the bed and knelt down, setting the child onto the mattress. Dulcie threw her tiny arms around Clara’s neck, burying her face into her mother’s tangled hair. Clara collapsed forward, her shaking, bruised hands clutching her daughter’s cardigan, sobbing so violently her entire frame rattled against the iron bedframe.
"My baby... my baby... they told me they threw you in the river..." Clara wept, kissing Dulcie’s cheeks, her forehead, her hair, leaving streaks of salt and tears across the child’s skin. "They told me you were dead..."
Bramwell reached out. His broad hand rested against the back of Clara’s neck, his fingers tangling gently into the hair he thought he would never touch again.
Clara lifted her tear-streaked face. Her eyes met Bramwell’s.
"You found us," she whispered, her voice cracking with exhaustion and disbelief. "Bramwell... you found us."
"I have you," Bramwell said, his voice thick with an emotion that felt entirely foreign in his throat. "It’s over, Clara. I swear on my life, it’s over."
Clara reached up, her frail, pale hand covering his heavy fingers on her neck. But as she touched his signet ring, her eyes didn't fill with peace. They filled with a new, terrifying dread.
"No, Bramwell," Clara whispered, her breath trembling against his palm. "It isn't over. You don't understand."
Bramwell frowned, his jaw tightening slightly. "Saskia is ruined. Osric is broken. The clinic is secure."
"Saskia didn't plan this," Clara said, leaning forward until her dry lips brushed his ear, her voice dropping into a desperate, frantic cadence. "She was just the pawn. Lucian came here yesterday, Bramwell. Before the engagement party."
Bramwell froze.
"What did Lucian say?" he asked, his voice deadly calm.
"He said the wedding tonight was a distraction to get you away from the harbor terminals," Clara whispered, her tears soaking into his collar. "He said the shipment coming in from Antwerp tonight wasn't machine parts. It’s federal evidence against your entire enterprise. Lucian didn't just want me gone, Bramwell... he called the Department of Justice three hours ago. They’re raiding your estate right now."
In Bramwell’s breast pocket, the encrypted satellite phone began to vibrate violently against his chest.
The mechanical hum of heavy helicopter blades began to echo in the distance, sweeping across the dark waters of the Hudson River toward the sanitarium roof.
Bramwell did not move. He kept one hand on his wife’s trembling shoulder and the other on his daughter’s back.
The door behind him creaked open, and Kavanagh’s voice cut through the dim room, cold and urgent:
"Mr. Hollander. We have incoming radar contacts. Unmarked gunships. Two minutes out."
Bramwell looked into Clara’s terrified blue eyes, then down at the worn photograph resting inside his pocket.
May you like
Slowly, the veteran titan rose to his full, towering height, his hand drifting beneath his tailored overcoat toward the grip of his weapon.
"Let them come," Bramwell said.
