Page 140 of Anchor
Vos cut her off, “It’s not about stability. It’s about inevitability.” He leaned forward, wincing at the strain in his sore jaw. “We have the faces. We have the professionals. And soon, we’ll have Claire’s child.”
Heather went quiet again. Her fingers curled around the edge of her shawl.
Vos’s gaze darkened. “You always failed to understand what this is about, Heather. Claire was an experiment gone wrong. She formed bonds and attachments. That made her... unpredictable.”
He shifted, forcing his spine straighter. “But this child, a child born under our control, surrounded by our voices, can be shaped from the first breath.”
Heather’s voice was tight. “You want to raise it.”
“No,” Vos said coldly. “I want to claim it.”
He stared out at the thin line of ocean visible between the curtains. “This child will carry Hanlon and Bowman blood. But it will bear my name and my will. And when the old order collapses, as it inevitably will, she will stand at the head of what comes next.”
Heather said nothing.
Vos finally turned back toward her, his tone silk over steel. “Claire was the prelude. This child is the crown.”
A long beat passed, then he nodded to an aide standing at the door. “Send the message to our people in Prague. When she enters her third trimester at the end of the week, we’ll initiate the extraction.”
Heather stood slowly. “And if Ian or Reid, for that matter, catches wind?”
Vos smiled, jagged and mean. “Then we burn everything on the way out. But not before I have the child in my hands.”
FORTY-SIX
CHASE DENVER – REHAB SUITE – 0530 HOURS
The first thing Claire registered was the soft hiss of the oxygen purifier and the faint sound of unmistakably medical voices. Equipment was rolling across the hardwood. Gloved hands opened sterile pads. It wasn’t frantic. It was choreographed, like a ballet of caution. She blinked, trying to lift her heavy lids and awaken her slow brain.
Reid was awake beside her in their shared bed, half raised on the pillows, bare-chested beneath a cotton blanket. He was watching the room too. “Morning.” His voice was rough with sleep.
Claire’s hand slid instinctively to her belly. The baby kicked—a small, defiant flutter.
She sat up slowly. “Are they… here all the time now?”
Reid nodded toward the frosted glass partition near the suite entrance. “They started installing at four. Linc cleared the entire floor. A new doctor, Rowan Vale, is running the med team. Seth and Tuck are base-camping from the conference room with the fetal monitors.”
Claire blinked again. She could make out the monitor lights pulsing softly in the corner, her name blinking beside the date. Blood pressure tracking. Heart rate. Fetal readouts.
She looked around, swallowing. “It feels like an ICU in a penthouse.”
Reid reached over and brushed her hair from her cheek. “Because it is.”
She exhaled shakily, leaning into his touch. “I woke up thinking I dreamt it, the collapse and the bleeding.”
“You didn’t,” he said quietly.
Claire’s voice caught. “I thought I was losing our baby.”
Reid took her hand, threading his fingers through hers, grounding her. “You didn’t. You’re here. She’s here. They’re watching everything. You and our baby are priority one.”
Outside, the medical team shifted. Tuck’s low and gruff voice cut through briefly as he reviewed her vitals with Vale.
Claire closed her eyes. “It’s like living in a hospital.”
“It’s like living in a fortress,” Reid countered, pulling her closer. “And you’re the very important person we’re protecting.”
She driftedoff again just before sunrise.
