Chapter 8 - The Boy They BuiltSamuel Wren survived the drive back to the estate.
Barely.
He was septic from an untreated wound along his thigh and severely dehydrated.
Clara operated for two hours.
Victor waited outside the surgical suite.
He did not pace.
Victor Kaine never paced.
He stood completely still, which Clara had learned meant his thoughts were more dangerous than usual.
When she finally emerged, he looked at her.
“He’ll live.”
Victor nodded.
“When can he talk?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Tonight.”
“Tomorrow.”
“Clara.”
She stepped close enough that nobody else could hear.
“He has a systemic infection and blood pressure of eighty over fifty. If you interrogate him tonight, you may get your answer while he dies. If you wait, you get answers and a living witness.”
Victor looked through the glass.
“Tomorrow.”
“Good.”
He started walking away.
Clara caught his hand.
“Where are you going?”
“To work.”
“No.”
He looked down at their joined hands.
“You’ve been awake almost forty-eight hours.”
“So have you.”
“I slept during the drive.”
“You were unconscious for twelve minutes.”
“Counts.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
Clara led him toward her private quarters.
Victor followed.
That surprised her.
Inside, she pointed toward the bed.
“Sleep.”
His expression became faintly amused.
“You should be careful giving me commands in your bedroom.”
“Your romantic timing is pathological.”
“It was an observation.”
“Bed.”
Victor removed his jacket.
Then his shoulder holster.
Clara turned away.
Six months ago, she would have been uncomfortable with the intimacy.
Now she knew the scars across his body.
Bullet wound near the shoulder.
Knife scar along the ribs.
The thick line on his abdomen from the night he arrived at her apartment.
She knew which side he slept on when injured.
She knew he hated morphine because it made him feel helpless.
She knew he drank Scotch when angry but coffee when afraid.
Victor lay down.
Clara sat beside him.
“You’re staying?”
“Until you fall asleep.”
“That sounds suspiciously kind.”
“Don’t tell anyone.”
His eyes closed.
Five minutes later, his breathing deepened.
Clara remained.
She studied his face.
Without the hard focus in his eyes, Victor looked younger.
Less like the man who controlled half the city.
More like the thirty-six-year-old who had inherited an empire at twenty-four after his father’s sudden death.
Putting you in his chair.
Wren’s words haunted her.
What if Victor’s entire life had been engineered?
At 8:00 the next morning, Wren woke.
Victor, Clara, Elias, Dominic, Evan, and Agent Reed gathered in the secure medical room.
Wren looked at Victor.
“I’m sorry.”
Victor sat across from him.
“Start at the beginning.”
Wren swallowed.
“Your father developed atrial fibrillation. Mild. Manageable. I prescribed medication.”
“Digoxin?”
“No. Metoprolol.”
Clara understood.
“Someone substituted digoxin.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“The pharmacy supplier.”
“St. Jude’s?” Clara asked.
Wren looked at her.
“Same distributor.”
Her stomach tightened.
“Argent?”
“Before it was called Argent.”
Victor leaned forward.
“Who controlled it?”
Wren hesitated.
“Arthur Prescott handled the accounts.”
“We know.”
“But Prescott wasn’t in charge.”
Victor became still.
“Who was?”
Wren looked toward Elias.
Everyone followed his gaze.
Elias frowned.
“What?”
Wren’s face changed.
Recognition.
“You.”
Elias stepped backward.
“I’ve never met you.”
“Yes, you have.”
“No.”
“Twelve years ago. Michael’s office.”
Victor stood.
Elias raised both hands.
“Victor.”
Wren stared.
“You brought the medication.”
Clara looked at Elias.
Dominic’s hand moved toward his gun.
Victor’s voice was dangerously calm.
“Elias?”
“I did deliver medication to your father occasionally. I was his aide. That proves nothing.”
Wren shook his head.
“You knew.”
“I knew nothing.”
“You told me Michael needed to die before the council vote.”
Dominic drew his pistol.
Elias did not move.
Victor looked at his oldest adviser.
Elias had served his father.
Then Victor.
He had been beside Victor through the succession war.
He had brought Clara from the Narrows.
He had built her clinic.
He had stood outside operating rooms while she saved Victor’s life.
“Is it true?”
Elias’s face was pale.
“No.”
Wren began laughing.
“You always were convincing.”
Clara watched Elias.
Something bothered her.
Too easy.
Marcus’s credentials had implicated Elias.
Now Wren implicated him.
Someone wanted them looking at Elias.
“Victor.”
He did not look at her.
“Not now.”
“Look at me.”
He did.
“This is staged.”
Wren protested.
“I know what I saw.”
Clara turned.
“You were being held for days. Drugged?”
“Yes.”
“What did they give you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Hallucinations?”
“Sometimes.”
“Memory gaps?”
Wren hesitated.
“Yes.”
Clara looked at Victor.
“His testimony is unreliable until his bloodwork is clean.”
Elias exhaled slowly.
Dominic lowered the gun slightly.
Wren became agitated.
“I remember him!”
His monitor accelerated.
Clara approached.
“Calm down.”
“He killed Michael!”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know!”
Wren grabbed her arm.
“He’ll kill you too.”
Elias stared.
Clara injected a mild sedative.
Wren’s grip weakened.
Before falling asleep, he whispered:
“Ask about the boy.”
Victor froze.
“What boy?”
But Wren was unconscious.
Elias left voluntarily.
He surrendered his weapon and moved into a guarded guest room.
Victor did not order it.
Elias insisted.
“If someone is framing me, my presence complicates the investigation.”
Dominic watched him leave.
“I’ve known him fifteen years.”
Victor said nothing.
Clara touched his arm.
“Trust evidence.”
“I trusted Marcus.”
“And Marcus may have been framed.”
“I trusted Prescott.”
“When you were twenty-four.”
“I trusted Wren.”
“You were a kid.”
Victor looked at her.
“I wasn’t a kid.”
“Yes, you were.”
Something flashed in his expression.
“Twenty-four-year-olds shouldn’t inherit wars.”
He turned away.
Evan, who had remained unusually quiet, spoke.
“Boy.”
Everyone looked at him.
“What?” Clara asked.
“Wren said ask about boy.”
“Yes.”
Evan pointed toward the files taken from Marcus.
“Maybe boy in files.”
They searched.
Two hours later, Evan found it.
A photograph hidden between documents in Michael Kaine’s file.
Victor at seventeen.
Standing beside his father.
Behind them was Arthur Prescott.
And another man.
Clara recognized him from somewhere.
Dominic did too.
“No way.”
Victor looked closer.
The man was Warren Bell.
The physician who had chaired Clara’s disciplinary review at St. Jude’s.
On the back of the photograph, someone had written:
SUBJECT V.K. — PHASE ZERO.
Clara felt cold.
Victor read it.
“What the hell is Phase Zero?”
Agent Reed’s phone rang.
She answered.
Listened.
Then looked at Victor.
“We found financial records from a shell company connected to Prescott.”
“And?”
“Payments dating back twenty years.”
“To whom?”
Reed looked at Clara.
“Psychologists. Tutors. Private security firms. Political consultants.”
Victor’s expression hardened.
“All connected to me?”
“Yes.”
Clara understood.
“They studied him.”
Reed nodded.
“Since adolescence.”
Victor stared at the photograph.
The boy they built.
His father’s death.
The succession war.
The people around him.
What if none of it had been accidental?
A security alarm interrupted them.
Dominic answered his radio.
His face changed.
“East gate.”
“What?”
“Someone just drove up.”
“Who?”
Dominic looked toward Victor.
“Arthur Prescott.”
Silence.
Victor almost laughed.
“He came here?”
“He’s alone.”
Clara felt unease.
“That makes no sense.”
Victor looked toward the monitors.
A black Bentley waited outside the gate.
Arthur Prescott stepped out.
He wore an immaculate gray suit.
He raised both empty hands toward the camera.
Then he spoke into the intercom.
“I’m here to see Victor.”
The guard asked why.
Prescott looked directly into the camera.
“Because if he kills me before hearing what I know, Clara Hayes will be dead before sunrise.”
Victor’s expression vanished.
Clara stared at the screen.
May you like
Prescott smiled.
“And this time, Doctor, there won’t be anyone left to stitch you back together.”
