Chapter 21 - The Forty-Minute Run
The silence inside Haven Crest’s shattered nursery was broken only by the rhythmic, mocking hum of the wall intercom. Sebastian stood completely motionless, his knuckles white around Antonio’s signet ring. Blood oozed between his fingers, dripping onto the pristine linoleum floor, yet he didn't blink. The digital numbers on the wall clock shifted from 11:18 to 11:19 PM.
Claire rushed to Leo’s side. Her nursing instincts took over before panic could paralyze her. She dropped to her knees, tearing open Leo's bloodied undershirt to inspect the damage. Two deep puncture wounds marred his ribs—rebar or shrapnel from the breached wall—and dark, sluggish blood bubbled against his pale skin.
"He has a tension pneumothorax starting on his left side," Claire whispered, her voice tight, urgent. "His lung is collapsing, Sebastian. If I don't vent his chest, he won't survive the next twenty minutes, let alone forty-two."
Sebastian tore his gaze away from the intercom. The chilling, dead-eyed rage of a syndicate lord softened for a fraction of a second as he looked at his firstborn. He fell beside Claire, pressing two fingers against Leo’s neck to feel the fluttering, erratic pulse.
"Leo," Sebastian said, his voice a low gravel rumble that commanded obedience from the threshold of death. "Stay with me. You fought like a Rossi. Now you live like one."
"Dad..." Leo gasped, his lips turning a faint shade of blue. "They took Maya and little Nico first. Antonio's men... they had police badges. Then Antonio walked in through the terrace. He... he took the baby right out of the backup pod. He said he was going to throw him off Pier 44 unless you delivered Claire yourself."
Claire froze. "Why me? Sebastian, who was my father to your brother? What did Arthur Miller do?"
Sebastian reached into his tactical vest, pulling out a sterile 14-gauge decompression needle—gear he carried for ballistic trauma. Without hesitation, he handed it to Claire. "Your father was the chief geneticist and chief of obstetrics at St. Jude’s twenty-five years ago. He held the key to the family vault, Claire. Antonio didn't just want power; he wanted a bloodline that could wipe out mine. Arthur Miller refused to alter the hospital registry. Antonio swore he would exterminate every branch of Arthur’s tree."
Claire's hands trembled for half a second. Then she steeled herself, feeling along Leo’s ribs until she found the second intercostal space. With practiced, ruthless precision, she drove the needle inward. A sharp hiss of trapped air escaped the boy's chest cavity. Leo gasped, arching his back as fresh oxygen flooded his struggling lungs, the blue tint on his lips receding.
"Good girl," Sebastian murmured, his eyes locking onto hers with a fierce, burning gravity. "You just saved my heir. Now I am going to save ours."
"He said to come alone," Claire said, rising to her feet, wiping Leo’s blood from her wrists. "He said bring Arthur Miller’s daughter. If you try to take an army to Pier 44, he'll drop that incubator into the harbor before you cross the gate."
"I am the army," Sebastian said flatly.
He hauled Leo onto a reinforced gurney, wheeling him into the panic vault behind the bookcase, securing the blast door with a biometric lock that only Leo’s pulse could deactivate from the inside. Then, Sebastian turned to the hidden weapons locker beneath the floorboards. He didn't pick up heavy rifles or assault gear. He strapped a ceramic blade beneath his left forearm, a suppressed .45 into a shoulder holster, and slid a small, silver tracking beacon into the lining of his boot.
"Forty minutes," Sebastian muttered, checking his watch. "The docks are sixteen miles south through the industrial canal. The rain will buy us cover, but Antonio has eyes on every overpass."
Claire grabbed his arm, forcing him to face her. "I'm not going as your bait, Sebastian. I'm going as that baby’s nurse. His lungs are under-developed. If he's off regulated oxygen for more than forty-five minutes in this coastal dampness, he will suffocate on his own fluids. Antonio doesn't even need to drop him into the water to kill him."
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Sebastian looked at her, seeing no fear in her eyes—only the fierce, protective fury of a woman who had spent weeks breathing life into a five-pound miracle. He nodded once, grabbed her hand, and dragged her down the servant stairs into the subterranean garage.
The matte-black SUV roared to life like a caged predator. As the garage doors rolled open into the torrential rain, Sebastian slammed the gas pedal to the floor. The tires screamed against the wet concrete, shooting them into the night. Forty-two minutes had already dwindled to thirty-eight, and the ghost of Palermo was waiting by the water.
