Chapter 10 - The Lion Unchained
The Central Park breeze froze into needles against Clare’s skin.
The words echoed inside her head, shattering her reality into a million jagged shards.
They took Mia.
"No," Clare whispered, her voice barely a breath.
Then the horror erupted from her throat in a deafening scream.
"No! No, God, no!"
She lunged toward Thomas, her hands grasping the lapels of his heavy coat, shaking the massive bodyguard with wild, hysterical strength.
"Where is she? Where did they take my sister?!"
Thomas stood frozen, his eyes filled with genuine remorse, unable to answer.
"Clare!"
Gabriel’s voice cut through the chaos like a whip.
He grabbed her wrists, pulling her hands off Thomas and gathering her trembling frame against his chest.
Clare thrashed violently against him, sobbing, clawing at his dress shirt.
"You promised me!" she screamed into his chest, her fingernails tearing through his linen. "You swore she was safe! You said your men owned that hospital! You lied to me!"
"Look at me!" Gabriel commanded, his voice dropping into a terrifying roar of absolute authority.
He caught her face in both of his large hands, forcing her head up until her tear-drenched eyes were locked onto his.
His gray eyes were no longer calm; they were blazing with a cold, murderous fury that seemed capable of incinerating the city below.
"I am going to get her back," Gabriel swore, each word enunciated with lethal clarity. "Do you hear me, Clare? Whoever touched that child signed their own death warrant the second they crossed that threshold. I will pull this city apart brick by brick until she is back in your arms."
Clare choked on her own breath, seeing the monstrous, unyielding promise etched into every line of his face.
Her knees gave out completely, but Gabriel held her upright against his body.
He turned his furious gaze to Thomas.
"Who was it?" Gabriel barked.
"Not Sullivan," Thomas answered rapidly, pulling out a tactical radio. "Sullivan’s crew is completely grounded in Staten Island. Surveillance cameras caught a black delivery van leaving the service alley. The plates trace back to a shell company owned by Marcus Vance."
Gabriel’s eyes widened by a millimeter, a lethal shock registering across his features.
"Dr. Vance?" Clare gasped through her tears. "The doctor who treated my foot?"
"Vance is on Sullivan’s payroll," Gabriel said, his voice dropping into a whisper so cold it made Thomas take half a step back. "He was Sullivan’s inside man in my household for five years. When Sullivan went down, Vance knew I would audit the inner circle next. He took the girl as collateral to negotiate an exit out of the country."
Gabriel reached inside his tuxedo trousers, pulled out a encrypted satellite phone, and dialed a single number.
"Sound the call," Gabriel ordered into the receiver, not waiting for a greeting. "All sectors. Total lockdown on every port, tunnel, bridge, and private airstrip in the Tri-State area. Tell every crew leader that anyone who spots Marcus Vance gets five hundred thousand dollars cash. If they bring him to me breathing, they get a million. Move."
He hung up and shoved the phone back into his pocket.
"We leave now," Gabriel commanded, keeping one arm securely wrapped around Clare’s waist as he swept her off the terrace toward the private VIP elevators.
They bypassed the crowded ballroom completely, descending straight into the underground parking garage where three armored black Suburbans were already idling, their engines roaring like caged beasts.
Gabriel opened the rear door of the center vehicle and helped Clare inside.
He climbed in beside her, followed by Thomas in the passenger seat.
The convoy tore out of the subterranean garage, tires screeching against concrete, racing into the dark city streets at breakneck speed.
Inside the vehicle, Gabriel opened a hidden compartment beneath the rear seat.
He pulled out a tactical vest, strapping it over his dress shirt with practiced speed.
He pulled two automatic pistols from a lockbox, checking the magazines with sharp, rhythmic clicks before sliding them into his holsters.
Clare watched him through her tears, huddled in the corner of the leather seat, clutching the silk of her dress.
"What if he hurts her?" Clare whispered, rocking back and forth in agony. "She’s so sick, Gabriel. Without her medication, she won't survive twenty-four hours. Her lungs can't take it."
Gabriel holstered his second weapon, then turned to her.
He reached out, his gloved hand cupping the side of her neck, pulling her toward him until their foreheads almost touched.
"Listen to me very carefully, Clare," he said, his voice steady as iron. "Dr. Vance is a coward, but he is a physician. He knows Mia is only valuable to him as long as she is drawing breath. He will keep her alive to save his own miserable skin."
The radio on the dashboard crackled to life with static.
"Boss," an operative’s voice barked through the speaker. "We intercepted a burner transmission pinging off a cell tower in Red Hook. Old naval warehouse district, Pier 42. Vance has a private trawler waiting at the slipway to take him to international waters."
Gabriel released Clare’s neck and grabbed the dashboard mic.
"Isolate the perimeter," Gabriel ordered. "Do not engage until I am on site. If Vance sees flashing lights, he might get desperate. I want him cornered like a rat."
"Copy that, boss. We have eyes on the building. No movement outside."
Gabriel set the mic down.
He looked through the tinted windshield as the heavy vehicle rocketed across the Brooklyn Bridge, the dark waters of the East River churning below them.
"Thomas," Gabriel said coldly. "Kill the sirens."
"Yes, boss."
Gabriel turned back to Clare.
He reached into his inner pocket and produced a small, silver .22 caliber pocket pistol with a mother-of-pearl grip.
He placed it directly into Clare’s trembling hands, closing her cold fingers around the textured steel.
"Keep the safety on until you need it," Gabriel instructed softly. "You stay in the vehicle with two armed guards while we breach. But if anything goes wrong, if anyone other than me or Thomas opens that door... you aim for the center of their chest and empty the magazine."
Clare looked down at the lethal weapon resting in her lap.
Four days ago, she had been a terrified waitress crying on a stranger’s floor over an unpaid hospital bill.
Now she was sitting in an armored war wagon, clutching a loaded pistol, heading toward an abandoned pier in the dead of night to rescue her baby sister from a traitor’s hands.
She wiped the tears from her face with the back of her silk sleeve.
Her hands stopped shaking.
She clicked the safety on the small weapon, looked straight into the eyes of the deadliest man in New York, and spoke with a voice that was pure, unbroken steel:
May you like
"Don't kill him until I see Mia breathing with my own eyes."
Gabriel Hayes looked at her, and in that dark, speeding vehicle, a fierce, terrifying pride burned in the depths of his eyes.
