Chapter 4 - The Path of the Hunter
In the three years since that fateful Tuesday night in the penthouse, Lucas Dracott had become a phantom of his own making. The Dracott Maritime empire had grown exponentially, controlling the entire shipping logistics of the Great Lakes, but Lucas himself had grown colder, more detached, and utterly ruthless.
He sat in his executive office on the top floor of the Dracott Tower, looking down at a surveillance report. Across from him stood his chief of security and right-hand man, Marcus Vance—a hardened former intelligence officer who had been with Lucas since the early days.
"The board wants you to review the expansion contracts for the Indiana ports, Lucas," Marcus said, placing a thick folder on the black glass desk. "But something else came up during the routine background checks on the local contractors in Gary."
Lucas didn't look up from his tablet. "If they have a criminal record, disqualify them. I don't need local thugs stealing from my containers."
"It's not a contractor, Lucas," Marcus said, his voice carrying a strange, hesitation that caused Lucas to raise his eyes. "It’s a name that flagged in our historical financial database. A name associated with a specific corporate card transaction three years ago."
Lucas’s jaw clenched. He didn't need to ask. For three years, a memory had haunted him—a memory of a quiet, proud janitor who had looked into his eyes and named her price down to the single dollar. He had tried to find her a month after that night, sent his men to the Thornbury Hotel, only to find she had vanished without a trace, leaving no forwarding address, no phone number, nothing. It was the first time someone had managed to completely disappear from his network.
"Bella Kovalchuk," Lucas said, his voice dropping an octave.
"She’s living in Gary, Indiana," Marcus confirmed, sliding a photograph across the desk. "Working as a cash-basis bookkeeper for a junk yard. She’s living in a third-floor walk-up in the industrial sector."
Lucas picked up the photograph. It was taken from a distance. Bella looked thinner, her hair pulled back into a simple ponytail, walking down a cracked sidewalk holding two small children by their hands. A boy and a girl.
Lucas froze. His eyes locked onto the boy’s face. Even in a grainy, long-lens photograph, the child’s eyes were unmistakable. They were storm-gray. His eyes.
A strange, suffocating sensation gripped Lucas’s throat. He looked at the girl, who was laughing, holding a small toy truck.
"How old are they, Marcus?" Lucas demanded, his fingers gripping the edge of the photograph so hard the paper crumpled.
"Our sources at the local charity hospital checked the birth registry, sir. They were born exactly thirty-eight weeks after November fourteen, twenty-twenty-two. The night she was in your penthouse."
Lucas stood up so fast his executive chair slammed against the glass partition behind him. The Scotch he’d consumed that night, the desperation, the transaction—it hadn't been an end. It had been a beginning. She had taken his money, carried his blood away in the dark, and hidden his children in a slum while he sat in a tower of gold.
"Get the cars ready," Lucas whispered, his face darkening with a terrifying mixture of shock, betrayal, and a sudden, primal possessiveness. "We’re going to Indiana."
"Lucas, wait," Marcus said, stepping into his path. "There’s one more thing. The investigator who took these photos... he wasn't the only one watching that apartment building."
Lucas’s eyes snapped to his security chief. "What do you mean?"
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"An old syndicate group from the east side—remnants of the old Wendell Dracott faction—have been sniffing around that sector. We don't know why yet, but they’ve been taking photos of the kids too. If they figure out those twins belong to you, they won't just be an asset. They’ll be a target."
Lucas’s expression went from angry to lethal in a fraction of a second. "Then we leave now. If anyone touches my children, I will burn that entire state to the ground."
