Chapter 3 - The Interrogation & The Paper Trail
The basement facility beneath the penthouse did not look like a dungeon; it looked like a high-tech corporate surveillance bunker. Reinforced concrete walls, rows of muted monitors displaying street feeds, and a central steel table where a man sat handcuffed to an iron ring anchored in the floor.
The prisoner was the fake hotel guard—the man whose badge read "Thomas Avery." His nose was broken, blood staining the collar of his gray vest, but his eyes were bright with a desperate, trapped arrogance.
When the heavy steel door hissed open and Gideon entered, flanked by Declan and Mallerie, the prisoner leaned back as far as his cuffs would allow.
“You’re making a mistake, Vale,” the man spat, wiping blood from his lip with his shoulder. “You have no idea who you’re messing with.”
Gideon didn't answer immediately. He walked to a side counter, pulled off his suit jacket, draped it meticulously over the back of a chair, and rolled up his crisp white sleeves to his elbows. The dark ink of a tactical tattoo—a dragon coiled around a broken crown—crept up his left forearm.
Mallerie stood near the doorway, her arms crossed tight over her chest. The smell of cold sweat, copper, and damp concrete made her stomach turn, but she refused to step back. She needed to know who had tried to grab her child.
Gideon pulled out a steel chair, dragged it across the floor with a terrifying screech, and sat down directly opposite the prisoner.
“Your name is Marcus Cole,” Gideon said calmly, holding up a sleek black tablet. “Ex-military. Dishonorably discharged eight years ago for selling medical supplies on the black market in Berlin. For the last three years, you’ve been on the payroll of Apex Logistics—a shell company registered to Dr. Julian Sterling.”
Marcus Cole’s arrogant smile faltered slightly.
“I know who you work for, Marcus,” Gideon continued, his voice as smooth as silk and twice as deadly. “What I want to know is why Sterling sent you to a high-society gala to grab a baby from my arms.”
“I don't know what you’re talking about,” Cole muttered, staring at the table. “I was paid five grand to deliver a message.”
Gideon didn't get angry. He didn't raise his hand. He simply leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table, his gray eyes locking onto the hitman’s face like laser sights.
“Declan,” Gideon murmured.
Declan stepped forward, carrying a silver laptop. He opened it, turned the screen toward Cole, and pressed play.
On the screen was a live feed of a quiet suburban house. Two security vehicles were parked on the curb outside.
“That’s your sister’s home in Chicago,” Gideon said softly. “Your two nieces are inside watching television. They have forty minutes before bedtime.”
Marcus Cole went rigid. The color drained from his face until he looked like a corpse. “You bastard... Leave them out of this!”
“Then stop wasting my time,” Gideon growled, his voice dropping an octave into a guttural snarl. “Why did Sterling send you?”
Cole swallowed hard, his chest heaving as he looked between Gideon’s icy face and Mallerie’s pale, furious expression.
“It... it wasn't supposed to be a snatch-and-grab,” Cole stammered, his voice breaking. “Sterling got a tip from one of his informants at the hotel. He was told that a woman matching Mallerie Reed’s description was working the catering line at the gala.”
Mallerie gasped, her hand flying to her throat. “Me?”
“Sterling panicked,” Cole confessed, the words pouring out of him now in a desperate torrent. “He knew Vale was at the gala with the kid. If Mallerie saw the baby... if she saw the birthmark... the whole secret was in danger of blowing up. He sent me in to intercept her before she got near the kid. But when I got into the ballroom, she was already holding him!”
“Who else knows?” Gideon demanded. “Who else is involved in Sterling’s operation?”
“It’s not just Sterling!” Cole cried out. “Sterling is just the doctor! The whole operation is backed by the Vane Syndicate!”
Gideon’s eyes narrowed into slits. “Marcus Vane?”
Mallerie looked between them. “Who is Marcus Vane?”
“A monster,” Gideon answered darkly. “A rival syndicate boss who controls the city’s pharmaceutical imports and private medical networks. He and Sterling have been running a high-end baby-trafficking ring for over five years.”
Cole nodded frantically. “They target young, vulnerable women who come into St. Jude’s alone. Women with no wealthy family, no powerful husbands, no legal backing. Sterling falsifies the delivery room records, tells the mothers the babies died of sudden respiratory failure, and then launders the infants through offshore adoption brokers to wealthy clients, politicians... and people like you, Vale!”
The silence that followed was deafening.
Mallerie felt as if the room were spinning out of control. Her knees shook so violently she had to press her back against the cold concrete wall to stay upright.
They didn't just steal her baby. It was a factory. A cold, calculated, multi-million-dollar industry built on the blood and tears of heartbroken mothers like her.
Gideon stood up slowly. His face was unreadable, but the veins along his neck were bulging against his skin.
He had bought a child. He, Gideon Vale—a man who prided himself on his ruthless intelligence, his absolute control over his empire—had been played like a fool by Julian Sterling and Marcus Vane. They had handed him a stolen infant, taken his three million dollars, and used him as a shield to hide their grotesque crime.
He turned to Declan. “Keep him locked down. Cut all communications to Chicago, but keep eyes on the sister’s house.”
“Yes, Boss.”
Gideon walked over to Mallerie. Without a word, he gently took her elbow, guiding her out of the interrogation room and back toward the private elevator.
When the heavy steel doors closed behind them, isolating them in the quiet corridor, Mallerie looked up at him. Tears of rage and horror were burning in her eyes.
“You bought my son,” she whispered, her voice dripping with raw, wounded accusation. “You paid three million dollars for my baby.”
Gideon stood tall, taking the blow without flinching.
“Yes,” he said, his voice heavy with a dark, bitter weight. “I did. I believed a lie written on stolen paper.”
He reached out, his large hand hesitating in the air before he gently set his fingers against her shoulder. His touch was surprisingly gentle for a man whose hands had brought down empires.
“But hear me now, Mallerie,” Gideon said, looking straight into her soul. “I didn't know. If I had known, I would have burned St. Jude’s to the ground ten months ago. And now that I do know... I am going to tear Marcus Vane and Julian Sterling apart piece by piece.”
Mallerie stared at him, her chest heaving. “And what about Owen? What happens when the dust settles? Do you give him back to me, or do you keep him because you have the guns and the money?”
May you like
Gideon looked at her for a long, silent moment.
“First,” he said softly, “we get the DNA test results to prove what our hearts already know. Then... we figure out how two people who love the same boy survive the war that’s coming.”
