Chapter 6 - The Retaliation
By sunrise, the city was at war.
I woke up to the sound of Declan’s voice echoing from the main living area. I threw on one of his oversized shirts and walked out to find his living room turned into a command center. Four men in suits were working on laptops, and Declan was pacing, holding a phone to his ear.
"If the police issue an Amber Alert, I will personally leak the bank routing numbers to the New York Times," Declan snarled into the phone. "You have one hour to stall the precinct."
He hung up and saw me standing there. The anger in his face instantly softened. He walked over, his massive frame shielding me from the view of his men.
"Halpern is panicking," Declan said quietly. "He realized the foster parents are missing. He’s trying to spin it. He’s telling the police you lost your mind and kidnapped Marcus."
"He's framing me?" Panic seized my chest. "Declan, they'll take Nora. If I go to jail, Nora goes into the system!"
"No one is taking Nora," Declan said, his hands gripping my shoulders, his thumbs pressing firmly to ground me. "Listen to me, Clara. You are standing in the safest room in North America. I have a team of federal lawyers working on this as we speak. We have the confession from the foster parents. But Halpern is a judge. He has the local police in his pocket."
"So how do we stop him?"
"We don't stop him," Declan said, his eyes darkening into a lethal gold. "We annihilate him. We make the fallout so catastrophic that the local police drop his name just to survive the blast."
Over the next twelve hours, I watched Declan Shaw work. He was a master of chaos. He didn't use guns. He used information.
By noon, anonymously leaked documents hit every major news desk in the city. The documents proved Judge Halpern had been funneling state childcare funds into offshore accounts.
By 2:00 PM, the local police precinct received a video file of Halpern's brother-in-law admitting to beating Marcus, keeping him locked in a closet, and cashing the checks for the judge.
But Halpern was a cornered rat, and cornered rats bite blindly.
At 4:00 PM, the building’s internal alarms flared.
Declan’s security chief rushed into the room. "Boss, NYPD SWAT just breached the lobby. Halpern somehow got a tactical warrant for kidnapping. They’re coming up."
I screamed, instinctively running toward the guest bedroom where Marcus and Nora were playing.
"Lock the steel doors!" Declan roared to his men. Heavy, titanium bulkheads slid shut over the elevator banks and the stairwell exits. The penthouse was entirely sealed.
Declan ran to me, catching me by the waist before I could reach the bedroom. He pulled me hard against his chest. His heart was thundering, but his face was perfectly calm.
"They're going to break down the doors," I cried, tears streaming down my face. "They're going to take him back. They're going to take Nora!"
"Look at me," Declan demanded, cupping my face with both hands. "Look right at me, Clara."
I looked into his eyes.
"I swore to you," he whispered fiercely. "I do not lose. I am buying time. The feds are three minutes away."
"The feds?"
"I gave the FBI everything I have on Halpern's mob ties. I handed over my own leverage to get them here," Declan confessed, his voice dropping so only I could hear.
I gasped. "You gave up your own leverage? Declan, they could arrest you."
"I don't care," he said, and the absolute truth in his voice broke my heart wide open. "If the choice is keeping my empire or keeping you three safe, let the empire burn."
Then, he leaned down and kissed me.
It wasn't a tentative first kiss. It was desperate, claiming, and explosive. All the terror and adrenaline of the past forty-eight hours poured into it. My hands tangled in his hair, pulling him closer, anchoring myself to the only safe thing in my world.
May you like
A massive crash echoed from the elevator bay as the SWAT team began ramming the titanium doors.
Declan pulled back, his forehead resting against mine, his breath ragged. "Stay with the kids," he ordered softly. "I'll handle the wolves."
