Chapter 3 - The Fortress of the Drake Syndicate
The private medical wing of St. Jude’s Hospital looked less like a clinical ward and more like a five-star hotel suite commandeered by a military general. Armed guards in dark suits stood outside every exit, their expressions carved from granite, while inside, state-of-the-art heart monitors beeped with a rhythmic, calming cadence.
Sloan opened her eyes slowly, the harsh fluorescent lights replaced by the soft, amber glow of recessed ceiling lamps.
Her first sensation was the taste of copper and dry cotton in her mouth. Her second was the agonizing, dull throb behind her right eye—a lingering ghost of the violent attack her nervous system had suffered just hours earlier.
"Easy, Mom. Don't move too fast."
Hazel’s voice came from the armchair beside the bed. The little girl was curled up with a blanket pulled to her chin, her dark eyes hollow with exhaustion. On the adjacent sofa, Iris was fast asleep, her head resting on a plush velvet pillow.
Sloan tried to sit up, but her muscles felt like wet paper. "Hazel... where... where are we?"
"We're at a hospital," Hazel said quietly, climbing down from the chair and walking over to clutch the edge of the crisp white hospital sheets. Her fingers trembled slightly. "Mom... the men in the suits came. They brought us here. And... and someone else is here too."
Sloan’s heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird. She knew before she asked, but the words forced themselves past her dry lips anyway.
"Who?"
Before Hazel could answer, the heavy double doors of the private suite swung open with a slow, silent click.
A man stepped into the room.
Time seemed to stutter, folding backward across eight agonizing years. Griffin Drake hadn't softened with age; if anything, the passing years had carved his features into something even more formidable. Taller than Sloan remembered, broad-shouldered and impeccably dressed in a charcoal three-piece suit with a crimson silk tie, he carried himself with the effortless, terrifying grace of a apex predator who owned the city beneath his feet.
His hair was peppered with subtle silver at the temples, and his eyes—those striking, slate-gray eyes that stared back at her from the faces of her twin daughters—locked onto hers with an intensity that sucked all the air from the room.
He didn't speak. He just walked slowly toward the bed, his footsteps completely silent on the thick Persian rug.
Sloan’s breath caught in her throat. She instinctively pulled the sheet higher up her chest, her mind racing through a dozen panicked escape routes, knowing full well she couldn't even stand unassisted.
"Eight years, Sloan," Griffin said, his voice a low, gravelly hum that vibrated through the quiet room. He stopped three feet from the mattress, his hands sliding slowly into his trouser pockets. "Three thousand miles. Twenty-four different addresses. And you thought you could hide my flesh and blood from me in a sleepy Seattle suburb?"
"Griffin..." Sloan’s voice was a cracked whisper, barely audible over the hum of the heart monitor.
"Shut up," he said, not with cruelty, but with an overwhelming, suffocating weight of authority.
He turned his gaze slowly from Sloan to Hazel, who stood protectively beside the bed, watching him with a mixture of awe and defensive wariness. Griffin reached out a large, steady hand, his fingers hesitating for a fraction of a second before gently resting on the top of Hazel’s dark curls.
Hazel didn't flinch. She just looked up at him, her small brow furrowing in deep contemplation.
"You have my eyes," Griffin murmured, his voice softening around the edges, cracking slightly for the first time in front of another human being. He looked back at Sloan, his jaw clenching so hard muscles ticked along his cheek. "And you kept them from me. Why?"
The tension in the room was so thick it could have been sliced with a scalpel. Sloan swallowed hard, her throat burning.
"Because I wanted them to live," she whispered fiercely, summoning every ounce of remaining strength to sit up against the pillows. "I wanted them to grow up without looking over their shoulders, wondering if a bomb was going to blow up their car or if a rival syndicate was going to put a bullet in their heads while they walked home from school! I wanted them to have a normal life, Griffin! Something you could never, ever give them!"
Griffin didn't flinch at her outburst. He didn't raise his voice. He simply stared at her with an expression of cold, unyielding fury that was infinitely more terrifying than a shout.
"Normal?" Griffin stepped closer, leaning over the bed until his face was inches from hers, his slate-gray eyes boring straight into her soul. "Look out that window, Sloan."
He gestured sharply toward the floor-to-ceiling glass wall that overlooked the Seattle skyline.
"That's your 'normal.' That's the safety you built for them in a rented house with flimsy locks and zero perimeter defense. While you were playing suburban mom, someone walked right up to your desk in broad daylight and dropped a death warrant on your blotter."
Sloan’s breath hitched. "The envelope..."
"The Valenti syndicate," Griffin said, his voice dropping into a lethal, quiet register. "Marco Valenti thinks he can touch what is mine. He thinks that by sending a calling card to the mother of my children, he can draw me out into the open." Griffin straightened up, sliding his hands back into his pockets. "You tried to protect them by running away, Sloan. But all you did was leave them naked and defenseless in the woods."
The harsh truth of his words hit Sloan like a physical blow. She closed her eyes, a single tear escaping down her pale cheek. She had spent eight years running from Griffin, believing he was the greatest threat to her children's safety, only to discover that her absence had made them the ultimate leverage in a war she didn't even know she was fighting.
"What are you going to do?" Sloan asked, her voice trembling with dread.
May you like
Griffin turned toward the door, pausing with his hand on the polished brass handle. He didn't look back, but his words hung in the sterile air like a solemn, blood-pounding oath.
"I'm going to find Marco Valenti. And I am going to skin him alive." He turned his head slightly, his slate eyes locking onto Sloan one last time. "And you, Sloan? You and the girls aren't going back to that house. From this second on, you live in the Drake Tower. Under my roof. Under my guard. And God help anyone who tries to take another step toward you."
