Chapter 9 - FIRE IN THE FORBIDDEN GARDEN
Hannah’s scream came from the collapsed western corridor.
I dragged myself toward the sound until a guard brought my damaged chair. One wheel bent inward, but the motor still worked.
We found Hannah pinned beneath a fallen iron trellis. Blood ran from a cut at her temple.
“Where are the children?” she demanded.
“In the tunnel.”
Her face went white. “They followed the locket signal.”
Gabriel emerged from the smoke with two federal agents. His left arm hung uselessly at his side.
“Roman jammed communications and used old service passages that weren’t on our plans,” he said.
“They were on Audrey’s plans.”
The conservatory had been built over tunnels once used to move coal from the lake. Audrey turned one into an irrigation corridor and sealed the rest.
Roman must have discovered them while searching for the ledger.
We lifted the trellis from Hannah. She could stand, though barely.
“You’re staying here,” I told her.
She shoved my hand away. “My children are underground.”
No one argued after that.
The primary tunnel entrance lay beneath the heron fountain. Flames had blackened its marble wings, but the release mechanism still worked when I pressed Audrey’s locket into the hidden recess.
The fountain rotated, revealing stone stairs.
Gabriel looked at my wheelchair. “The passage isn’t accessible.”
“Then carry me.”
Two agents transferred me into an emergency evacuation chair. Every jolt sent pain through my surgical wound.
Dr. Park would have murdered me herself if Roman failed.
We descended.
The tunnel smelled of lake water and smoke. Children’s muddy footprints marked the floor.
Lily and Noah had gone toward the northern dock.
Halfway there, we heard voices.
Hannah ran ahead.
Lily appeared around the corner and collided with her.
“Mom!”
Hannah dropped to her knees and crushed her daughter against her chest.
“Where is Noah?”
Lily pointed into the darkness.
“He went after Miss Addie.”
My stomach clenched.
“You let him go alone?”
“He said I was too little.”
“Finally, the boy says something sensible,” Gabriel muttered.
Lily glared at him through her tears.
She explained what happened. Roman had dragged Audrey through the tunnel while two armed men followed. Noah activated an old gate using the locket, trapping one guard behind a steel barrier. Then he followed Roman toward the dock.
We moved faster.
At the end of the tunnel, moonlight spilled through a loading hatch. Beyond it, a private vessel waited at Pier Nineteen.
Roman stood on the deck with Audrey.
Noah crouched behind a stack of fuel drums fifteen yards away.
One of Roman’s men spotted him.
The gunman grabbed Noah by his coat and dragged him into the open.
“Found a rat,” he called.
Audrey struggled against Roman. “He is a child!”
Roman looked toward the tunnel.
“He is leverage.”
I pushed the evacuation chair into the moonlight.
“Then use me.”
Roman turned.
For the first time, he saw me outside the wheelchair.
The chair still had wheels, but my feet rested on the ground, braces locked around my knees.
His expression faltered.
“You had surgery.”
“You should have killed Crane before he talked.”
Roman pressed the gun against Audrey’s side.
“Give me the cipher key.”
“Release them.”
“You are not negotiating from power.”
“Neither are you.”
Gabriel’s agents held positions in the tunnel. A clear shot was impossible with Audrey and Noah so close.
I looked at my cousin—the boy who once slept on the floor of my room after nightmares, the teenager I taught to drive, the man I trusted with everything.
“Why didn’t you kill me at the docks?” I asked.
Roman laughed bitterly. “Crane convinced me a crippled king would be useful. He was right. Your name opened doors while your condition made people sympathetic.”
“And Audrey?”
“She refused to forget.”
Audrey met my gaze.
Despite the gun, she was calm.
Roman continued. “She remembered too much, then forgot too much. Every time we prepared to eliminate her, she hid another piece of evidence.”
“You were afraid of her.”
“I respected her.”
“No. You feared someone you couldn’t own.”
His jaw tightened.
Noah suddenly stamped on his captor’s foot and ducked.
The gunman cursed.
Audrey drove her elbow into Roman’s ribs.
Gabriel’s agents fired.
The dock exploded into motion.
Noah ran toward the tunnel. Hannah pulled him behind cover. Roman seized Audrey and dragged her onto the boat while his remaining gunman fired wildly.
The vessel’s engine accelerated.
Its mooring rope snapped taut.
Thirty feet away, an emergency gate blocked the channel. The control lever stood on a raised platform accessible only by three metal steps.
If the gate closed, Roman could not reach open water.
The wheelchair could not climb the steps.
Gabriel saw what I intended.
“No.”
“Cover me.”
“Caleb, you cannot walk.”
“I only need three steps.”
I gripped the rail and forced myself out of the evacuation chair.
Both legs shook violently.
The world narrowed to the first stair.
I lifted my right foot.
It cleared the metal edge by less than an inch.
My knee buckled. Gabriel caught my belt.
“Again,” I said.
The second step felt like tearing my spine open.
Audrey fought Roman on the boat. The vessel moved closer to the channel.
I planted my left brace, pulled with both arms, and dragged my body upward.
Third step.
I reached the platform and struck the emergency lever.
Nothing happened.
Roman had cut the power.
Beside the lever sat a manual hydraulic wheel.
I turned it.
The gate began descending with agonizing slowness.
Roman saw it.
He raised his pistol toward me.
Audrey grabbed his wrist as he fired.
The bullet tore through my coat and struck the rail.
Gabriel returned fire, hitting Roman’s shoulder.
The boat slammed against the half-closed gate. Audrey fell overboard.
Without thinking, I released the wheel.
The gate stopped.
Roman’s damaged boat drifted against the pier. Agents boarded it and subdued him, but I saw only Audrey’s head disappear beneath the freezing water.
Eight years earlier, I had watched our car sink with her inside.
I would not watch it happen again.
I tried to move toward the platform edge.
My legs collapsed.
Gabriel caught me.
“Get her!” I roared.
Noah pointed. “There!”
A hand broke the surface near the dock ladder.
Hannah lay flat and reached down. Lily wrapped both arms around her mother’s waist. Together they caught Audrey’s hand.
Agents pulled her from the water.
She coughed, shivering violently, but she was alive.
Roman lay facedown on the boat deck with handcuffs around his wrists. Blood darkened his shoulder.
He turned his head toward me.
“You think this makes you clean?” he shouted. “The ports carry your name! Every body in those containers belongs to you too!”
The words found their mark.
I looked at the damaged terminal, the armed agents, and the family I had almost lost to the empire I defended.
“No,” I said. “I am not clean.”
Roman smiled.
Then I continued.
“But I will spend the rest of my life making it right.”
Federal agents lifted him to his feet.
He expected me to order his death. The old Caleb might have.
Instead, I watched them place him inside a police vehicle.
Death would have ended his fear.
A courtroom would make him name everyone who believed wealth placed them beyond consequence.
Audrey reached me wrapped in an emergency blanket.
I touched her cold cheek.
“You came back for me,” she whispered.
“Every life.”
She leaned her forehead against mine.
Behind us, the winter conservatory burned against the sky.
May you like
For the first time, I did not see it as the destruction of my sanctuary.
I saw walls finally coming down.
