Chapter 2 - The Enemy Inside the Tower
The elevator had descended only three floors when Sarah collapsed in Declan’s arms. By the time the doors opened onto the private medical suite, blood was running from her nose—and someone had already erased six weeks of security footage.
“Stay with me.” Declan carried her through the clinic doors while two nurses rushed toward them. “Sarah, open your eyes.”
She tried, but her eyelids barely moved.
Dr. Jonathan Weaver entered seconds later, still wearing rain beneath his coat. He had delivered babies for senators, business leaders, and crime families without asking which category his patients belonged to. Tonight, however, the look on Declan’s face made his hands tremble.
“What happened?”
“She lost consciousness in the elevator.”
“Put her here.”
Declan lowered Sarah onto a bed but refused to release her hand. Nurses connected monitors, inserted an IV, and drew blood. A rapid fetal heartbeat filled the room.
Declan stared at the screen.
“That is the baby?”
“Yes,” Weaver said. “The heartbeat is elevated, but present.”
Present was not enough.
“Will they survive?”
“I need to stabilize her and begin chelation therapy. The poison has accumulated over time.”
“Answer me.”
Weaver met his eyes. “If the exposure stops tonight, they have a chance.”
Declan’s fingers tightened around Sarah’s.
“A chance is not a promise.”
“No honest doctor can promise you more.”
The fetal heartbeat continued, rapid and fragile. Declan stood beside the bed as nurses cut away Sarah’s blazer and attached more sensors. A small gold chain fell from beneath her blouse. Hanging from it was a ring.
Declan recognized it immediately.
It was the signet ring he had lost in Miami.
Sarah had worn it hidden against her heart for four months.
A painful realization struck him. She had not buried that night as easily as he believed.
He stepped back only when Weaver insisted the treatment required space. Outside the clinic, Declan’s security chief, Marcus Vale, waited with three armed men.
Marcus had served the Hayes family for seventeen years. At forty-five, he was built like an aging fighter and possessed the patience of a man who had survived by noticing what others missed.
“The tower is sealed,” Marcus reported. “Forty-three people remain inside, including security, cleaning staff, and the overnight financial team.”
“Someone deleted the surveillance archives.”
Marcus’s expression changed. “How do you know?”
“I saw the camera above Sarah’s desk. Find who accessed it.”
“We already checked. Six weeks of footage were erased eleven minutes ago.”
Declan looked through the clinic window at Sarah.
“The poisoner is here.”
“Possibly.”
“Not possibly.”
Marcus lowered his voice. “There is another problem. Sarah’s bottled water supply is gone.”
“Gone?”
“The executive kitchen was cleared ten minutes before lockdown. Someone placed the bottles in the industrial disposal chute.”
Declan’s anger remained cold. “Retrieve them.”
“The compactor already activated.”
“Then open the compactor.”
Marcus nodded.
Declan turned toward him. “No one knows the child is mine.”
“Someone apparently does.”
Only three people could have suspected what happened in Miami: the pilot who flew them home, the guard who secured the safe house, and Elena Rossi, Declan’s cousin and chief financial officer, who had seen Sarah leave Declan’s bedroom at dawn.
The pilot died two months earlier in a suspicious car accident.
The guard had vanished.
Elena worked four offices away.
“Bring Elena to the boardroom,” Declan ordered.
Sarah woke twenty minutes later. Her first word was not Declan’s name.
“The baby?”
He returned to her side. “Alive.”
She exhaled shakily.
“Dr. Weaver says the treatment is working.”
“I should have told you sooner.”
“Yes.”
His answer hurt her, but he would not lie.
“Did you stay silent because you feared me?”
Sarah looked toward the window.
“I feared what the child would mean.”
“To me?”
“To everyone.” She touched her stomach. “An heir changes the balance of power. Your rivals would target the baby. Some of your own people might decide an heir threatens their position.”
Declan thought of Elena.
“Did anyone know?”
“Dr. Weaver. No one else.”
“You wore my ring.”
Sarah touched the chain instinctively.
“I found it after you left the safe house bedroom.”
“You could have returned it.”
“I know.”
A silence passed between them.
“Was the night in Miami a mistake?” she asked.
Declan looked at her pale face. For years, he had refused to name what existed between them. Naming it created obligation. Obligation created weakness. Yet denying it had nearly cost him everything.
“No.”
Sarah’s eyes filled with tears.
He sat beside her. “My mistake was pretending it meant nothing.”
Before she could answer, Marcus appeared at the doorway.
“We found something.”
Declan did not want to leave her, but Sarah nodded.
“Go.”
He followed Marcus into the corridor, where a frightened kitchen attendant waited.
“This is Daniel Cho,” Marcus said. “He stocks the executive refrigerator.”
Daniel’s hands shook. “I didn’t poison anyone.”
“Then tell me who handled Sarah’s water.”
“I stocked it every Monday. Ms. Mitchell asked for one particular imported brand because regular water made her nauseous.”
“Who knew?”
“Anyone who used the kitchen.”
Marcus showed Declan a photograph taken inside the damaged compactor. Among crushed bottles and paper were fragments of red glass.
“We found one intact vial,” Marcus said. “No label. Residue inside.”
“Fingerprints?”
“The surface was wiped.”
Daniel spoke quickly. “There’s something else. The water was already in the refrigerator when I arrived last Monday.”
“Who placed it there?”
“I don’t know. But Ms. Rossi was in the kitchen.”
Elena.
Declan entered the boardroom minutes later. His cousin sat at the long black table, perfectly composed in a silver suit. Their fathers had been brothers. After both men died, Declan inherited command while Elena became the financial mind behind the legitimate empire.
She smiled faintly. “Locking down an entire skyscraper seems dramatic, even for you.”
“Sarah is pregnant.”
The smile disappeared for half a second.
Declan noticed.
“With my child,” he continued.
Elena leaned back. “I wondered when you would discover it.”
“You knew.”
“I can count months.”
“She is being poisoned.”
This time, Elena’s surprise appeared genuine—or carefully performed.
“What?”
“You were seen near her water supply.”
“So were twenty other people.”
“You left Miami knowing what happened.”
Elena folded her hands. “Are you accusing me because your secretary kept a pregnancy secret?”
“I am asking whether you poisoned my family.”
The word family changed something in her eyes.
“I spent my life protecting this organization while you were permitted to inherit it simply because you were born male,” she said. “Do you truly believe I would destroy it now?”
“That was not an answer.”
“No. I did not poison Sarah.”
Declan studied her.
A security guard entered and whispered something to Marcus. Marcus immediately turned to Declan.
“We found the missing footage.”
“Where?”
“On Sarah’s personal laptop.”
Sarah had copied the videos before they were erased.
Back in the clinic, they opened the encrypted folder while she watched from bed. Sarah entered the password and pulled up footage from the executive kitchen.
For several nights, nothing unusual occurred.
Then, at 11:43 p.m. three weeks earlier, a man wearing a maintenance uniform entered. He used an access card, opened Sarah’s water bottles one at a time, and injected a clear liquid beneath the caps.
His face remained hidden beneath a cap.
Marcus froze the frame as the man turned.
A tattoo was visible behind his left ear: a small black crown.
Declan recognized it.
The symbol belonged to the Crowne Street faction, a group supposedly eliminated five years earlier.
Their former leader had been Declan’s older half brother, Vincent Hayes.
Vincent had died in a warehouse fire—or so Declan had been told.
The clinic lights suddenly went out.
A silenced gunshot shattered the monitor beside Sarah’s head.
Declan threw himself over her as glass exploded across the bed.
Security returned fire toward the doorway. Emergency lights glowed red. Through the chaos, a masked attacker disappeared into the stairwell.
Marcus pursued him while Declan shielded Sarah with his body.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.” She clutched his shirt. “Declan, the baby—”
The fetal monitor had gone dark.
Dr. Weaver switched to battery power and moved a handheld scanner across her abdomen. For several unbearable seconds, the room remained silent.
Then a heartbeat returned.
Declan closed his eyes once.
Outside, Marcus’s gun fired twice.
When he returned, blood covered his sleeve.
“The attacker escaped through the service tunnels,” he said. “But he dropped this.”
He handed Declan an old silver lighter engraved with the initials V.H.
Vincent Hayes.
Declan stared at the object belonging to the brother he had buried five years ago.
Sarah whispered the question none of them wanted to ask.
“What if Vincent is still alive?”
May you like
Declan closed his fist around the lighter.
“Then he just declared war.”
