Chapter 6 - The Betrayal Inside Voss Tower
The safe-deposit box was in Zurich.
Because apparently criminal family secrets are required by law to travel internationally.
Declan did not find that joke funny.
June did.
Savannah laughed for a full minute.
We did not go to Switzerland.
Gavin contacted an attorney who had once represented Declan’s mother.
The box had been transferred after the bank merged.
Its contents could be released with the key and proof of Declan’s identity.
Forty-eight hours later, a bonded courier delivered a sealed metal case to a Voss attorney in New York.
Inside were three things.
A handwritten letter.
A cassette tape.
And documents proving Malcolm Rusk had been stealing from the Voss trust for twenty-three years.
Declan read the letter alone.
Then he gave it to me.
I did not want to read something that personal.
He insisted.
Declan,
If you are reading this, your father is probably gone and I was right to be afraid.
Malcolm believes power belongs to men willing to do anything to keep it.
Your father once believed the same.
Then you were born.
Children make hypocrites of powerful men.
Suddenly your father wanted a future different from the one he had built.
Malcolm called that weakness.
Your father called it evolution.
If Malcolm remains beside you after Patrick dies, do not trust him.
Do not inherit our mistakes simply because they carry your name.
Power without choice is only another kind of prison.
Build something better.
Mother.
I read the final line twice.
Then handed it back.
Declan folded the paper carefully.
“My mother hated this life.”
“So do you.”
He looked surprised.
“You do.”
“I hate what it requires.”
“That counts.”
He sat beside me.
Not touching.
“I spent seventeen years trying to be better than my father by becoming more efficient at the same thing.”
“That sounds like you.”
He smiled slightly.
“I thought if I controlled violence, it became order.”
“And now?”
“Now I think violence controlled me.”
The cassette contained Patrick Voss’s voice.
He had recorded a conversation with Malcolm.
The quality was poor.
But the meaning was clear.
Patrick wanted to dissolve the council structure.
Malcolm refused.
Patrick threatened to expose his theft.
Malcolm said:
“You built an empire. Don’t become sentimental because your son makes you imagine grandchildren.”
Patrick replied:
“Maybe grandchildren are exactly why empires should end.”
Seventeen years later, those words broke Declan.
He left the room halfway through the recording.
I found him outside.
The mountains were covered in fog.
He stood on the terrace.
I joined him.
For a while, neither spoke.
Then:
“My father was going to do what I’m trying to do.”
“Yes.”
“And Malcolm killed him.”
“Yes.”
Declan looked toward the forest.
“I hated my father.”
I waited.
“He was hard. Violent. Controlling.”
Another pause.
“But maybe he was changing.”
“You can love someone and still be angry about what they did.”
His eyes moved to me.
The sentence applied to more than Patrick.
I knew it.
So did he.
Before either of us could say more, Gavin appeared.
“We have a problem.”
“Only one?”
“Roman has Patrick Calloway.”
Savannah stood when we entered.
“What?”
Gavin placed a phone on the table.
Video.
Patrick Calloway sat in a chair.
Bruised.
Roman stood behind him.
Savannah went pale.
Roman spoke to the camera.
“Savannah. Your engagement embarrassed this family.”
He smiled.
“Declan. Your loyalty to a civilian has become expensive.”
My stomach tightened.
Roman continued.
“At midnight tomorrow, you transfer control of the western shipping network to me.”
He leaned toward the camera.
“Or father dies.”
Patrick lifted his head.
“No deal.”
Roman struck him.
Savannah flinched.
“Additionally,” Roman said, “Amelia Hart is delivered to a location I will provide.”
Declan’s face became stone.
“No.”
Roman on the video smiled.
“The baby does not need to survive.”
Declan shut the recording off.
The room went silent.
Savannah was shaking.
“We have to get my father.”
Declan nodded.
“We will.”
She looked at me.
Guilt entered her face.
I knew what she was thinking.
“No.”
“Amelia—”
“No.”
“He wants you because of Malcolm.”
“I know.”
“This is my family’s fault.”
“Not yours.”
Declan interrupted.
“Nobody is delivering anyone.”
Savannah rounded on him.
“My father will die.”
“Not if we find him.”
“Roman has safe houses everywhere.”
“Then start listing them.”
By evening, twenty-six locations had been identified.
Most were impossible.
Some already empty.
One warehouse near the Indiana border showed unusual power consumption.
Another had been rented under a company Roman used previously.
Declan began planning.
This time, he included me.
Not because I had tactical expertise.
I did not.
But because he had promised no more decisions around me without me.
I listened.
Asked questions.
Disagreed when something sounded reckless.
At one point Declan said, “We breach from the south entrance.”
I asked, “Why?”
He answered.
Not dismissively.
Not impatiently.
Simply explained.
It should not have mattered so much.
But trust often returns through tiny doors.
Gavin located Patrick at 10:14 p.m.
Thermal surveillance showed four people inside.
Possibly five.
Roman was not present.
Too easy.
“It’s a decoy,” I said.
Everyone looked at me.
Declan frowned.
“Why?”
“He wants you to attack.”
Gavin nodded slowly.
“Draw Declan out.”
“And me,” Savannah said.
I looked at the video again.
Roman had demanded both territory and me.
But he had given no delivery location.
“Because the warehouse isn’t about your father.”
I pointed at Savannah.
“It’s about getting all of you away from here.”
Declan’s expression changed.
Gavin understood.
“The mountain house.”
My blood went cold.
At that exact moment, the electricity died.
Darkness swallowed the room.
June shouted from upstairs.
A gunshot cracked outside.
Declan grabbed me.
Then stopped himself.
“May I?”
Even then.
Even now.
The question almost broke my heart.
“Yes.”
He pulled me behind the stone fireplace.
More gunfire erupted.
Emergency lights flickered red.
Gavin shouted orders.
Savannah crawled toward the hallway.
June appeared holding her shotgun.
“What did I miss?”
“Everything,” I said.
Glass shattered.
A man entered through the side door.
Declan fired.
The attacker dropped.
Another came through the kitchen.
June shot him.
I stared.
She shrugged.
“I told you I prefer uncomfortable.”
Smoke began filling the east hall.
Fire.
They were burning the house.
“Garage!” Gavin shouted.
We moved.
Declan stayed between me and every window.
Not pushing.
Not dragging.
Shielding.
I hated how safe that made me feel.
We reached the lower corridor.
A man stepped from behind a column.
Gun raised.
Declan turned.
Too slow.
I saw the weapon aimed at him.
“Declan!”
I shoved him.
The shot fired.
Pain exploded through my side.
For one horrible second, I thought I had been hit.
Then I realized the bullet had struck the wall.
I had fallen.
My stomach tightened violently.
Declan was on the attacker instantly.
One shot.
Then he was beside me.
“Amelia.”
“I’m okay.”
His hands hovered.
“Baby?”
“I don’t know.”
That terrified both of us.
Another tightening rolled through my abdomen.
Painful.
Wrong.
Declan’s face lost color.
“Gavin!”
Within minutes, we were in a vehicle.
Declan drove.
I lay across the back seat with Savannah beside me.
My abdomen kept tightening.
“No,” I whispered.
Savannah held my hand.
“You’re okay.”
“I’m only twenty-one weeks.”
“I know.”
“Too early.”
“I know.”
Declan drove faster.
“Hospital in thirty-two minutes,” Gavin said.
“Make it fifteen.”
“Declan—”
“Fifteen.”
I closed my eyes.
The baby moved.
Once.
Small.
Still there.
“Declan.”
He looked into the mirror.
“She moved.”
His eyes closed for half a second.
Then reopened.
“Good girl.”
The words came instinctively.
Good girl.
Our daughter.
His voice broke.
The contractions continued.
And for the first time since I had run from Chicago, I understood something terrifying.
May you like
I was no longer only afraid of Declan’s world taking my freedom.
I was afraid it might take him too.
