Chapter 6 - The Price of a Child
Marcus survived.
The bullet passed through his shoulder, missing the artery by less than an inch.
Eli was gone.
Victor sat beside Marcus’s hospital bed while two Boston detectives waited outside.
“Tell them everything,” Victor said.
Marcus shook his head. “Not yet.”
“They shot you.”
“And if Grant owns somebody inside the department, we tell him exactly what we know.”
Victor’s hands curled into fists.
Marcus looked at him carefully.
“The man who grabbed Eli said something.”
“What?”
“He called him ‘Elena’s insurance policy.’”
Victor went cold.
Back at the townhouse, Nora refused to cry.
She sat cross-legged on the library floor holding Rosie, staring at the door as if Eli might simply walk through it.
Sam cried enough for both of them.
Victor rolled toward them.
“I’m bringing him home.”
Nora looked at his chair.
“How?”
The question was not cruel.
That made it worse.
Victor answered anyway.
“With people who still owe me favors.”
He called dock foremen, former federal investigators, private security operators, and one retired detective who owed Elena Marquez an apology.
By evening, they traced the kidnappers to a closed rehabilitation center in Quincy that Hale Meridian had purchased two years earlier.
Grant had signed the acquisition.
Victor stared at the address.
Leah came in holding lab results.
“Victor.”
He looked at her face.
“Say it.”
“The patch contained baclofen, which you knew. But it also contained a compounded sedative and a peripheral nerve blocker.”
Victor said nothing.
“How much?”
“Enough, over time, to worsen weakness, dull sensation, and make rehabilitation look hopeless.”
Nora whispered, “They made him sick.”
Leah nodded once.
Victor’s phone rang.
Grant.
He answered.
“Uncle, I just heard about the boy. Terrible.”
Victor closed his eyes.
“How did you hear?”
Silence.
Then Grant laughed softly.
“Maybe we should stop pretending.”
Victor’s blood turned cold.
Grant continued.
“Come to Quincy alone if you want Eli alive.”
May you like
Victor looked at the wheelchair.
Grant added, “And bring the baby.”
