Chapter 5 - The Sanctuary in the Pines
The air in Evergreen was thin, cold, and smelled completely of silver fir and wood smoke.
I woke up to the sound of a crackling fire. The ceiling above me wasn't the white drywall of our suburban house in Denver; it was made of heavy, hand-hewn pine logs that gleamed with oil in the amber light of the hearth. I was lying in a massive, comfortable bed with flannel sheets, an IV line still attached to the back of my left hand, but the hollow, freezing sensation in my chest was gone. In its place was a dull, manageable ache and the steady, warm rhythm of an electric heating pad against my stomach.
I turned my head instantly, my heart racing as my eyes searched the room. "Ethan," I tried to call out, my voice still little more than a whisper.
"He’s right here, Emma. Calm down."
Gabriel was sitting in a heavy leather armchair by the window, a laptop resting on his knees, his heavy canvas coat draped over the back of the seat. He wore a simple charcoal flannel shirt that showed the massive, powerful build of his shoulders. His gray-green eyes looked tired, but the moment they landed on me, that cold, military focus softened into something steady and protective.
He stood up, walking over to a small wooden bassinet tucked into the shadow of the brick fireplace. With a gentleness that looked completely absurd given the size of his scarred hands, he lifted a small, swaddled bundle and carried it over to the bed, lowering him into the crook of my arm.
The moment Ethan’s warm skin brushed against mine, the last three days of terror dissolved into a flood of hot tears. I pulled him against my chest, inhaling the clean, sweet scent of his baby skin, mixed with the faint smell of the herbal wash Gabriel’s team had used to clean him. He was asleep, his small mouth open, a tiny fist pressed against his chin.
"He’s perfectly healthy," Gabriel said, sitting on the edge of the mattress, his arms resting on his knees as he watched us. "Liam ran a full pediatric sweep on him the moment we cleared the highway. He was dehydrated and cold, but his vitals are normal. He’s a fighter. Like his mother."
"How... how did you find us?" I asked, my fingers tracing the tiny, perfect curve of Ethan’s ear. "My grandfather... he hasn't spoken to me since the wedding."
Gabriel let out a short, dry chuckle that didn't reach his eyes. "Arthur Hayes might be a stubborn old bastard, Emma, but he’s not blind. He hired my firm three years ago to keep an eye on you. Not to interfere—he was too proud for that—but to ensure that the man you chose didn't turn out to be a predator."
His jaw tightened, the pale scar on his cheek turning a sharp white under the firelight. "We had an alert on your medical records from the hospital. When you checked out on Wednesday, my analyst flagged the high risk for a secondary hemorrhage due to the delivery complications. I had a team stationed two blocks from your house on Friday morning. We saw Ryan leave with his luggage."
I looked up at Gabriel, the memory of the social media notification flashing through my mind like a brand. "He knew I was bleeding. I begged him, Gabriel. I told him something was tearing apart inside me."
"I know," Gabriel said softly, his hand reaching out to place the white cardstock envelope onto the nightstand. "We took the footage from your home’s security hub before we wiped the server. Ryan has already seen it. He knows exactly what he left behind."
"Is he going to the police?" I asked, a sudden spike of fear making Ethan stir in my arms. "He has money, Gabriel. His firm has corporate lawyers who can turn anything into a custody battle—"
"Ryan isn't going to the police," Gabriel interrupted, his voice dropping into that quiet, absolute register that left no room for doubt. "Because right now, Ryan is convinced you're dead. And more importantly, he’s convinced that if the world finds out how you died, his career, his reputation, and his freedom are over before the weekend ends."
He stood up, walking back to the window, looking out at the snow-covered pines that surrounded the cabin. "But the story doesn't end with Ryan, Emma. Your grandfather passed away forty-eight hours ago in a private clinic in Zurich."
My breath caught in my throat. "Grandpa Arthur?"
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"He left a final directive for my firm," Gabriel said, turning around to face me, his gray-green eyes gleaming with a dark, dangerous intelligence. "The Hayes estate—the entire trust, the shipping lines, the real estate holdings in New York—it didn't go to his charitable foundations as the papers reported this morning. It was transferred into an offshore trust in the Cayman Islands three weeks ago."
He walked back to the bed, leaning down until his face was just inches from mine. "The sole trustee of that fund is a six-day-old boy named Ethan Parker. And the only person who can access a single dollar of that money before he turns twenty-one... is you, Emma. But only if Ryan Parker officially signs away his parental rights as a widower."
