Chapter 15 - The First Breath in the Storm
The agony peaked in a sound that shook the rafters. Eliza arched her back, every muscle in her bruised, scarred body screaming as she delivered the final push.
In my trembling hands, slick and warm against the bitter chill creeping across the floorboards, I caught our child.
A boy.
For three terrifying seconds, there was nothing but the crackle of the woodstove and the distant shriek of the blizzard. His skin was blue-gray, his tiny mouth slack, choked by amniotic fluid. My heart plummeted into a black abyss. After surviving my mother’s treachery, Savannah’s setup, the beating that nearly broke Eliza's soul, we couldn't lose him here. Not like this.
"Nolan?" Eliza's voice was barely a croak, trembling on the edge of utter despair. "Why isn't he crying? Nolan, please!"
I acted on instinct, clearing his airway with the sterile suction bulb from my field kit, flipping him gently and rubbing the small ridge of his spine with a warm, dry flannel cloth.
"Breathe, son," I ordered under my breath. "Fight for it."
A tiny, choked cough sputtered from his lips, followed immediately by a sharp, furious, beautiful wail that pierced the stillness of the cabin.
Eliza collapsed back onto the pillows, sobbing openly, her chest heaving with exhaustion and immense relief. I cut and clamped the cord with steady hands, wrapped the boy in the heated wool blankets from the hearth, and laid him directly against Eliza’s bare chest.
She pulled the blanket over him, kissing his damp hair over and over, her tears falling onto his forehead. "You're safe," she whispered to the infant. "You're safe now, Samuel. Mommy's got you."
Samuel. Named after my grandfather—the only Vance who had lived with honor.
While Eliza held our son, I quickly finished caring for her, ensuring the bleeding was controlled and bundling her in four layers of down quilts. The temperature inside the room was dropping fast. The wind howling through the damaged entryway was overpowering the stone fireplace.
I grabbed my heavy coat and stepped back toward the barricaded foyer to secure the breach. Before dragging the heavy timber boards to nail the front door shut, my boot kicked against the satellite phone Grady Finch had dropped.
The screen was still illuminated.
Three missed calls. And then, as I held the frozen plastic casing, a text message pinged on the screen, popping up from an encrypted proxy:
May you like
*Finch. Did you clear the cabin? Savannah just traded Vance’s location to the District Attorney's dirty faction for witness protection immunity. If you don't have the ledgers, burn the house down with them inside. The state police cleanup team is thirty minutes behind you.*
My blood ran colder than the ice outside.
