Chapter 5 – THE GOLD MONEY CLIP

Adrian didn’t lower his weapon. The barrel was pointed squarely between my brother’s eyes.

“Mr. Moretti, please!” I screamed, jumping between them. “He’s my brother!”

Adrian’s jaw clenched so tightly I thought his teeth might shatter. He slowly lowered the gun, his eyes burning with a cold, terrifying rage.

“You have exactly one minute to explain yourself,” Adrian said, his voice deadly quiet.

Lucas stood shivering in the kitchen, rain dripping from his jacket. He looked at the shattered front door, the scattered pearls, and Margaret crying on the floor.

“I work for Cross Medical Staffing,” Lucas stammered, his eyes wide with fear. “They assigned me to a private, off-the-books patient at St. Jude two years ago. I signed an NDA. They paid me triple my normal rate just to go in twice a day, check his vitals, and push his IV meds.”

“You were drugging my brother,” Adrian growled, taking a step forward.

“I thought it was seizure medication!” Lucas cried, holding his hands up defensively. “The charts were falsified! They said he suffered from violent neuro-spasms. But a month ago, I accidentally spilled a vial. I ran it through the lab at my nursing school to get a replacement without getting fired.”

Lucas swallowed hard.

“It wasn’t seizure medication. It was a heavy, synthetic barbiturate. They were chemically inducing a coma.”

Adrian stopped moving.

“When I realized what they were doing,” Lucas continued, his voice shaking, “I stopped putting it in his IV. I flushed it down the sink instead. A week later, he woke up.”

I stared at my brother. He wasn’t a villain. He was the only reason Daniel was awake.

“Why didn’t you go to the police?” Adrian demanded.

“Because the man who signed my paychecks is Marcus Cross!” Lucas yelled back. “He’s untouchable! I thought if I just woke the patient up, he could tell someone who he was!”

Adrian ran a hand over his face, processing the sheer magnitude of the betrayal.

“Vivienne took him,” Adrian said quietly. “She just walked out of here with him.”

Lucas’s eyes widened. “Where did she take him?”

“I don’t know,” Adrian said, the despair finally creeping into his voice. “She has hundreds of properties. Warehouses. Clinics. We’ll never find him before she forces me to sign over the empire.”

I looked down at the coffee table.

Resting next to the torn string of pearls was a small object.

It hadn’t been there before Vivienne’s men stormed in. One of the tactical guards must have dropped it during the struggle with Daniel.

I reached out and picked it up.

It was a solid gold money clip.

It didn’t hold cash. It held a small, laminated parking pass.

I turned it over.

I held it up. “Mr. Moretti.”

Adrian looked at the money clip. His eyes narrowed.

“Pier 39,” Adrian said, his voice hardening. “It’s a defunct shipping warehouse Vivienne’s family owns. They use it to smuggle contraband.”

He took the money clip from my hand.

“Lucas,” Adrian said, looking at my brother. “Can you keep Daniel alive if he goes into cardiac arrest from withdrawal?”

Lucas nodded firmly. “Yes. If I have a med kit.”

“There’s one in the bathroom. Grab it.” Adrian turned to me. “Sophie, stay here with Margaret. Lock the doors.”

“No,” I said, surprising myself with the firmness in my own voice. “I’m going with you.”

Adrian frowned. “It’s going to be a bloodbath, Sophie. You’re a housemaid.”

“I’m the woman who knows exactly how to get into Pier 39 without triggering the alarms,” I said. “Vivienne made me clean the executive offices there last year after a party. I know the ventilation shafts. I know the blind spots.”

Adrian stared at me for a long moment. He saw the fierce determination in my eyes. I was protecting my brother, just as fiercely as he was protecting his.

“Let’s go,” Adrian said.

Thirty minutes later, we were parked in a dark alley overlooking the massive, rusted structure of Pier 39. The freezing rain from Lake Michigan whipped against the windshield.

Five black SUVs were parked outside the main loading doors. Armed guards paced the perimeter.

“We can’t shoot our way in,” Adrian said, checking the magazine of his pistol. “If they hear gunfire, Vivienne will kill Daniel immediately.”

“We don’t have to,” I whispered.

I led Adrian and Lucas through the shadows, slipping behind a stack of rusted shipping containers. We reached the back wall of the warehouse. I pointed to a heavy iron grate near the ground.

“Old drainage tunnel,” I whispered. “It leads directly to the sub-basement beneath the main floor.”

Adrian pulled the grate open. We crawled through the damp, filthy tunnel, emerging into the pitch-black basement of the warehouse.

Above us, we could hear voices echoing through the floorboards.

We crept up the metal staircase, cracking the door to the main warehouse floor just enough to see inside.

The space was enormous.

In the center of the room, Daniel was tied to a chair under a harsh industrial light. He looked terrifyingly pale, his head drooping against his chest.

Vivienne was standing in front of him, holding a syringe.

“Such a fragile thing,” Vivienne sneered, tapping the needle. “Twenty-two years of sleeping, and you just couldn’t keep your eyes closed.”

Adrian pushed the door open, raising his gun.

But before he could step onto the floor, a cold metal barrel pressed against the back of my head.

“Drop the gun, Adrian,” a voice whispered behind us in the dark.

I froze.

Adrian slowly turned around.

Standing behind us, holding a gun to my head, was one of Vivienne’s guards.

But as the guard stepped into the dim light, my heart shattered into a million pieces.

It was my brother, Lucas.

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