Chapter 3 - The Shadow Over Seattle
Seattle-Tacoma International Airport was bathed in a cold, steady drizzling rain when Flight 412 finally touched down.
Nolan walked through the busy terminal with Ivy strapped safely in a front-facing baby carrier against his chest. Standing beside him was Beckett, wearing his navy backpack, his hands tucked deep into his denim jacket pockets, glancing nervously at every passing traveler in a suit.
For three weeks, Nolan had been a broken man, drifting through a fog of grief and despair. But as he looked at the terrified seventeen-year-old boy standing beside him—his wife's secret son—something inside Nolan snapped into place.
The grief didn't vanish, but it was forged into a cold, unbreakable steel.
"My car is outside," Nolan said quietly, placing a firm, reassuring hand on Beckett's shoulder. "We're going straight to the hotel. Tomorrow morning, we meet Camille’s lawyer."
"Mr. Pierce," Beckett hesitated, looking at Nolan's face. "You don't have to do this. You didn't even know I existed three hours ago. If Arthur Sterling finds out you're helping me—"
"Arthur Sterling was involved in my wife's death, Beckett," Nolan interrupted, his voice dropping into a register of iron resolve. "Camille wrote six words on the back of that photo. She asked me to protect you. I failed to protect her from the snakes in her family because I didn't know they existed. I will not fail you."
Beckett swallowed hard, his hazel eyes shining with unshed tears. For four years, he had been a secret hidden in the shadows. For the first time since his mother died, he felt a wall of strength standing between him and the darkness.
They checked into a high-rise hotel overlooking Elliott Bay.
While Ivy slept soundly in the portable crib Nolan had set up near the bed, Nolan and Beckett sat at the room's round wooden table, going through the documents in Beckett's backpack.
"Tell me about the lawyer," Nolan said, reviewing a folded legal document stamped with a red seal.
"His name is Jonathan Vance," Beckett explained. "He was my mother's personal trust attorney in Boston before he moved his practice to Seattle three years ago. My mother said he was the only person in the legal system she trusted. He holds the original physical copy of Harrison Sterling’s 2008 estate trust."
Nolan examined the document. "Under this trust, if you turn eighteen next Tuesday, you become the primary beneficiary. But if you die or disappear before reaching eighteen, the entire trust defaults to Arthur Sterling as the surviving corporate executor."
"That's why he wanted me gone," Beckett murmured, staring at his hands. "Three weeks ago, right after my mother's funeral, two men in a dark sedan showed up at my foster home in Bangor. I had to jump out of my bedroom window and run to the bus station with just this backpack."
Nolan’s phone buzzed on the nightstand.
It was an alert from his home security system back in Boston.
Nolan picked up his phone and opened the live camera feed. His heart froze.
On the screen, high-definition night-vision cameras showed two men in dark suits standing on the front porch of his home outside Boston. One of them was using a lock-picking set on his front door, while the other was on a satellite phone.
"They're at my house," Nolan whispered.
Beckett stood up, terror in his eyes. "They followed my trail to your home in Boston!"
Nolan watched the camera feed as the men stepped inside his vacant house. One of them walked straight into the nursery, searching the closet, picking up the un-opened baby boxes, looking for any trace of Beckett or medical records.
Nolan took a deep breath, his mind working with terrifying clarity. He picked up his phone and dialed his private investigator in Boston—a former federal agent named Marcus Callahan whom Nolan had hired two years ago for corporate security at his own logistics firm.
"Marcus," Nolan said calmly into the receiver.
"Nolan? Where are you? You sound strange," Marcus answered.
"I'm in Seattle with Ivy," Nolan replied. "There are two intruders inside my house in Boston right now. They broke through the front door three minutes ago. I want you to call the state police, send your team to secure my home, and run the license plate on the dark sedan parked down my street."
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"On it," Marcus said crisply. "Nolan... what's going on?"
"Arthur Sterling," Nolan declared, looking straight at Beckett. "He's hunting my family. I want everything you have on Sterling Financial by midnight."
