Chapter 1 - The Sanctuary of Concrete and Shadow
By the time the motorcade reached the underground garage, Dr. Thomas Alcott was waiting with a gurney and two nurses. Once a respected surgeon, Alcott had lost his hospital career to scandal, addiction, and one impossible debt Gabriel had paid. Since then, he had belonged to the Falco household.
“What happened?” Alcott asked, taking one look at Clara.
“Storm exposure,” Gabriel said. “Six months pregnant. Possible trauma.”
Alcott barked orders. Warm fluids. Fetal monitor. Oxygen. Blood pressure. Move.
As they wheeled Clara away, Gabriel handed him the ultrasound photo.
“Save the child.”
Alcott looked at him.
Gabriel’s jaw tightened.
“And save her.”
Four hours later, Clara woke to beeping.
For one confused second, she thought she was dead.
The room had no windows. The walls were concrete. Medical monitors glowed beside the bed. A warm strap circled her belly, and when she looked down, she saw the curve still there.
Her baby was still inside her.
A sound escaped her, half sob, half prayer.
“The child is stable,” a deep voice said from the corner.
Clara jerked her head toward the shadows.
A man sat in a leather chair, one ankle resting over the opposite knee. His black shirt was open at the throat, sleeves rolled to the forearms, revealing dark tattoos that disappeared beneath the fabric. He watched her with unnerving stillness.
“Who are you?” she whispered. “Where am I?”
He stood.
The room seemed smaller when he did.
“My name is Gabriel Falco.”
Clara’s blood went cold.
Even from the edges of Chicago society, she knew that name. Falco was not spoken loudly. It belonged to men in black cars, closed-door deals, and city officials who suddenly forgot what they had seen.
“You’re a criminal,” she said.
His mouth curved slightly. “Most wealthy men are. Some of us are simply more honest about it.”
Clara pushed herself up, pain flashing across her abdomen. “I need to leave.”
“If you leave tonight, you die.”
May you like
“That sounds like a threat.”
“It is a medical fact.” Gabriel stepped closer and placed the soaked Pierce envelope on the foot of her bed. “Your core temperature was dangerously low when my men found you. You were in premature contractions. You had no shoes, no phone, no money, and a family powerful enough to make you disappear.”
