Chapter 7 - The Velvet Box
I stared at the black velvet box resting on top of my crimson indictment file.
"Open it," Victor commanded softly.
My fingers were trembling so badly I could barely catch the small gold clasp. When the lid flipped back, the dim light of the desk lamp caught the metallic reflection inside.
It wasn't a key. It wasn't a passport.
It was a custom, high-density encrypted flash drive made of black titanium, along with a newly minted Canadian passport bearing my photograph and the name Dr. Harper Vance.
"The flash drive contains every byte of data you stole from the Vance Institute," Victor said, his voice low and rhythmic. "All the ledger entries, the chemical assay reports, the medical records of the children, and the complete paper trail linking Marcus Moretti to the offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands."
I looked up at him, my brow furrowing in confusion. "How did you get this? I hid the original drive in a safety deposit box in Philadelphia."
"I have good people in Philadelphia," Victor replied simply. "The passport is authentic. It has a real diplomatic visa stamped on page twelve, issued by the Canadian Ministry of Health. In four hours, a private helicopter will land on the north lawn. It will take you to an airfield in Milwaukee, and by noon tomorrow, you will be in Vancouver."
I stared at the blue passport cover, my chest tightening until I could barely breathe.
"You're letting me go?"
"I'm giving you what you worked fourteen months for," Victor said, turning his back on me and walking toward the dark window overlooking the locked courtyard. "Your freedom. A clean name. A research laboratory at the University of British Columbia has already been set up under your new identity. You can spend the rest of your life analyzing brain scans in peace."
It was everything I had dreamed of for three long, terrifying years. Freedom. Safety. A real career without the constant, suffocating fear of federal marshals or syndicate hitmen busting down my door in the middle of the night.
So why did my heart feel like it was being crushed by a iron weight?
"And Finn?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
Victor’s shoulders stiffened under his black coat, but he didn't turn around.
"Finn will be fine," he said flatly. "The Zurich compound is stored in the pantry. I have hired two full-time pediatric nurses from Northwestern Hospital who will arrive tomorrow afternoon to take over his care."
"Nurses?" I stepped forward, my voice rising in sudden, unadulterated panic. "Victor, you can't just hand him over to strangers! His brain is in a critical stabilization window! If they miss a single dose or misread his temporal EEG spikes—"
"They are licensed professionals, Evelyn!" Victor snapped, turning around to face me, his grey eyes flashing with that familiar, defensive rage. "They have thirty years of combined clinical experience! They don't have federal warrants out for their arrest, and they don't bring armed cartels to my front gate!"
"They don't know how to anchor him!" I shouted, taking two rapid steps toward him, completely ignoring the five-foot distance between us. "When the sirens go off, they won't sit on the rug with him! They'll strap him to a bed and give him sedatives because it’s easier for their shift schedule! He will regress, Victor! Within three months, his micro-seizures will return, and everything we fought for over the last fourteen months will be destroyed!"
"Then what do you want me to do?" Victor roared, his hands coming up to grab my upper arms again, pulling me close until his chest was pressed against mine. "Do you want me to keep you here while Moretti’s men throw flashbangs through my son’s bedroom windows? Do you want me to let them drag you out of this house in handcuffs while Finn watches from the stairs?"
"I want you to let me save him!" I screamed into his face, my tears spilling hot and fast over his knuckles.
"I am saving YOU!" Victor roared back, his voice breaking on the second word with a raw, agonizing frequency that echoed off the cedar walls.
The room went completely, terrifyingly still.
Victor stood there, his heavy hands locked around my arms, his face flushed, his chest heaving as if he had just run ten miles through the snow. His grey eyes were wide, bloodshot, and filled with a desperate, naked emotion he had spent three years hiding behind concrete walls and armed guards.
He wasn't looking at a witness. He wasn't looking at a nanny.
May you like
He was looking at me.
"I can't lose another person in this house, Evelyn," he whispered, his voice dropping into a broken, raspy murmur. "I can't watch another person I... that my son needs... get torn apart by these people."
