Chapter 7 - The Ash in the Files
While Liam recovered in the hospital, the shadow of the past was moving through the underbelly of Chicago.
In a dimly lit warehouse on the south side of the city, a man named Donald Vance sat at a metal desk, looking over a series of stolen medical records from Northwestern Memorial. Donald was the younger brother of Wendell Dracott’s late wife—the faction that had been presumed dead in the fire twenty-five years ago.
"The boy’s DNA match is confirmed," a subordinate stated, throwing a file onto the desk. "He’s Lucas’s kid. No doubt about it. The mother is a former janitor from the Thornbury."
Donald Vance let out a low, gravelly chuckle, his fingers tracing a burn scar that ran down his own neck—a remnant of the same explosion that had altered Lucas’s life. "Lucas thinks he’s the only survivor. He thinks he inherited the Dracott Maritime empire because he was the chosen son. He has no idea that my brother Wendell didn't die in that car."
"Sir? Wendell is still alive?" the subordinate gasped.
"In a private sanitarium in Indiana, his mind completely gone from the trauma," Donald hissed, his eyes flashing with a deep, ancestral hatred. "But his daughter—Lucas’s cousin, the three-year-old girl he thought burned to death—she survived too. Wendell’s wife managed to throw her out of the window before the tank blew. I’ve been looking for that girl for twenty-five years to claim her share of the Maritime stock. If Lucas has kids now, the inheritance splits. We need to eliminate the children before Lucas legalizes their status."
"What about the mother?"
"Kill her too," Donald ordered, standing up and pulling a heavy black pistol from his drawer. "We move tonight. The security at the hospital is tight, but Lucas is moving them to his private estate in Lake Forest tomorrow. We hit them on the highway. We finish the fire that started twenty-five years ago."
Back at the hospital, Bella was packing the children’s clean clothes into a canvas bag. Liam was sitting up, eating a bowl of chocolate pudding, while Clara was drawing pictures of seagulls on a hospital notepad.
Lucas entered the room, his expression tense, his eyes scanning the corridor outside before he closed the heavy wood door.
"The discharge papers are signed," Lucas said, his voice low. "We’re not going back to Indiana, Bella. I’ve prepared the estate in Lake Forest. It has twenty-four-hour biometric security, a private medical staff, and enough space for the children to play without ever seeing a steel mill."
"Lucas, I can't live in your mansion," Bella said, stopping her packing. "It feels like a cage. A beautiful, expensive cage, but a cage nonetheless."
"It’s not a cage, Bella, it’s a fortress," Lucas said, stepping closer, his hands reaching out to take her wrists. His grip was firm but gentle. "Marcus intercepted an encrypted transmission from the old south-side syndicates. Someone knows about the twins. Someone knows they’re mine. Until I find out who is watching them, you are not safe anywhere else. Please. Let me protect you."
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Bella looked into his storm-gray eyes, seeing the genuine, raw terror of a man who had already lost one family to a fire. She realized that his control wasn't born from malice; it was born from a desperate, lifelong attempt to prevent history from repeating itself.
"Okay," Bella whispered, her fingers loosening against his wrists. "For the children. We’ll go to Lake Forest."
