Chapter 282
Hilliard ignored him. He walked to his desk, pulled a fresh dress shirt from a drawer, and buttoned it up. His fingers were steady.
“How is the English family?” Hilliard asked, sitting and picking up a fountain pen.
“Bleeding out,” Gavin said from the corner, tapping at his tablet with quiet efficiency. “Bankruptcy proceedings started an hour ago. They’re liquidating personal assets — looks like Gregg is trying to scrape together cash for Charla’s bail.”
“Choke them,” Hilliard said, signing a document. “Anyone who lends them a dime is an enemy of this family.”
“Done.” Gavin nodded. “Sir — on the other matter. The search for the other two assets has hit a wall. Kegan’s network is a ghost. He’s running a series of global proxies to make the digital signatures of the other children appear to originate from a server farm in Eastern Europe. We’re re-tasking satellites, but it’s like searching for ghosts inside a machine.”
“Find them,” Hilliard said. His voice was flat, but the command was absolute. “I don’t care what it costs.”
Gavin slipped out of the room. The heavy oak door clicked shut, leaving the two cousins alone.
Vance set his glass down. The humor drained from his face.
“Hilliard,” he said quietly. “Are you really going to keep her locked up in there forever?”
“It’s protection,” Hilliard said, not looking up from his papers.
“Protection?” Vance scoffed. “It looks a hell of a lot like house arrest. She hates you, brother. I saw her eyes when they brought her in. That wasn’t anger — that was the look of someone who wants to salt the earth where this house once stood.”
Hilliard’s hand paused. The nib of his pen dug into the paper, tearing the fiber. Ink bled into a dark blot.
“She’s just angry,” Hilliard said. “Once the threat is gone — once she understands…”
“There is nothing to understand,” Vance said, leaning forward. “Five years ago, you didn’t protect her. Yesterday, you brought the woman who tried to kill her child into her life. That’s not a misunderstanding. That’s a dead end.”
Hilliard looked up. His eyes were cold flint.
“If you really love her,” Vance said, “you should let her go. Or at least stop treating her like an inmate.”
“Let her go?” Hilliard stood sharply, the chair scraping against the floor. “Let her take my daughter and vanish again? Never.”
“Then get ready for her to tear this place apart brick by brick,” Vance said, rising and buttoning his jacket. “By the way — your father’s back.”
The air in the room shifted.
“When?” Hilliard asked.
“Just landed. Headed straight to the Old House. Probably here to clean up the mess with Charla.”
Hilliard seized his jacket. “Watch Cailin. Don’t let anyone near her — especially anyone from the Old House.”
Upstairs, the tray was empty.
Cailin had forced down every spoonful of the bland porridge. It sat heavily in her stomach, but she felt the nourishment reaching her bloodstream, clearing the fog from her mind.
The lock clicked.
It wasn’t Hilliard. It was a massive bodyguard.
.
.
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