Chapter 6
"You touch one hair on my daughter's head, and I will tear your throat out," I snarled, every nerve ending in my body firing like white-hot wire.
Clara didn't even flinch. She tapped the glass screen of her phone and turned it toward me.
On the display was a live security camera feed.
It showed the sunny, yellow-painted classroom at St. Jude Elementary. Maisie was sitting at her small wooden desk, her brown pigtails bouncing as she colored a drawing of a horse. Outside the classroom window, parked right by the playground gate, sat an unmarked black transport van with tinted windows.
"I have two private security contractors parked outside her school right now," Clara said calmly. "All it takes is one text message from me to the front office claiming an emergency medical pickup authorized by Dr. Wyatt Miller. They walk her out the back doors before you can even cross town."
"You sick, psychopathic bitch!" I lunged, but Wyatt threw his arms around my waist, tackling me back against the examination table.
"Nora, stop! Stop!" Wyatt yelled, pinning my arms against my sides. "Clara, this wasn't the deal! You swore Maisie wouldn't be touched unless Nora and I both agreed to a formal clinical setting! You promised me!"
"You gave up your right to make deals the second you stole forty vials of Phase II peptides from my laboratory, Wyatt," Clara said, her voice dropping into a razor-sharp whisper. "You belong to me. Your house, your savings, your daughter's future—all of it exists because I covered your pathetic tracks."
"Let go of me, Wyatt!" I thrashed against his grip, digging my fingernails into his forearms until blood welled beneath my nails. "She's going to hurt our baby! Let me go!"
Wyatt’s grip loosened. He looked down at the blood on his skin, then at the live feed of Maisie on Clara’s screen, and then into my eyes.
The manic fog that had consumed him for twelve months seemed to shatter all at once.
"What have I done?" Wyatt whispered, his voice cracking into a ragged sob. "Oh God, Nora... what have I done to us?"
Suddenly, the heavy steel doors of Sub-basement C banged open down the hall.
A loud voice echoed through the concrete cavern: "Hospital Security! Anyone down here, step out into the corridor with your hands visible!"
Luke had done it. He had sent the sweep team.
Clara’s face darkened with venom. "Idiot," she hissed, slipping the phone into her pocket. She reached into her medical bag on the counter, pulling out a pre-loaded pneumatic injector. "Change of plans. We move Evelyn right now through the maintenance tunnel to the loading dock."
"We're not moving anyone," Wyatt said firmly. He stepped in front of me, his posture completely shifting as he positioned his body between Clara and me. "It's over, Clara. I'm turning myself in."
Clara looked at him, her lips curling into a cruel, pitying smirk. "You really think you're the one in control here, Wyatt? Check your bank account. Check the overseas shell company registered under your social security number."
May you like
Wyatt froze. "What are you talking about?"
"Who do you think funded the peptide trial, Wyatt?" Clara laughed softly as the sounds of heavy security boots sprinted down the hall. "The Vance family didn't lose their daughter in an accident. Evelyn Vance is the heiress to the Vance Pharmaceutical Trust. Her brother paid me five million dollars to make sure she never woke up from that surgery."
