Page 149 of Anchor
And for the first time since everything broke apart, Claire let her eyes fall shut again, holding on to the truth that the two most important people in her life were still here.
FORTY-NINE
NICU – THREE DAYS LATER – 0630 HOURS
Gestational Age: 25 weeks + 4 days
Weight: 1.9 lbs (860 grams)
Length: 13.1 inches (33.3 cm)
The doors to the NICU whispered open on motion sensors, releasing a subtle puff of air-conditioned sterility. It was clean, clinical, controlled. Reid stepped in and let them seal behind him.
It was quiet here but not silent. The room hummed with life preserved by machines. Ventilators clicked in rhythm. Monitors blinked their vigil in greens and soft blues. Somewhere, a nurse adjusted tubing with practiced grace. A baby cried, thin and birdlike. It was a fragile sound, but full of fight.
Dressed in an isolation gown, hands scrubbed and gloved, Reid didn’t stop until he reached Bay 5. His daughter.
The incubator glowed with soft, filtered light. The warmth-controlled dome was edged in pale fleece and lined with a folded muslin swaddle they’d chosen—stars and sky.
She looked so impossibly small. One arm lay folded near her face. Her skin was pink-red and translucent, almost like wet petals, so fine he could see the lacy veins beneath the surface. Her chest rose and fell in fast, shallow beats. She took over sixty breaths a minute. The nurses said that was normal. Reid still counted every one.
A nasal CPAP tube framed her nose, taped gently to her cheeks. Wires snaked from adhesive sensors across her chest and her tiny foot. Each one reported vital signs in real time.
Heart rate: 152. Respiration: 68. O2 sat: 94%.
Stable, they said. Barely three days old, and already a warrior.
Reid rested one hand inside the incubator port, fingers curled slightly. The nurse had shown him how. No sudden moves. Just presence, warmth and the scent of a father.
The baby’s foot twitched. Reid’s heart cracked open. He had faced bullets. Torture. A coma. Scour. And nothing—nothing—had undone him like this moment. Like this fragile, perfect baby girl he helped bring into the world.
His voice came out rough and quiet. “Hey, little one.”
The baby stirred again, reflex, not recognition. But Reid pretended otherwise. He needed it to matter. “You gave your mom and me a scare,” he whispered. “But she’s safe. You both are.”
He paused and swallowed hard. “I didn’t get to cut the cord or hand you to her like I was supposed to, or carry you in from the car seat. But I’m here now. And I swear to God, I won’t miss another thing.”
He blinked hard. “You made it, my little girl. And you’re mine.”
Another soft breath. Another flutter of movement. Her tiny fingers curled inward, not quite a fist.
Reid’s throat tightened. “Freya Bowman Hanlon,” he said gently, “welcome to the world.”
They chose Freya because she was the Norse goddess of love and war. She survived both.
MONTENEGRO – HIDDEN SAFEHOUSE – 0530 HOURS LOCAL TIME
Just after dawn, the fog still clung to the cliffs. Montenegro’s coast bled pale morning light in streaks of silver and ash, the horizon veiled by mist rising from the Adriatic. The house sat wedged into the cliffside, all clean, modern lines of poured concrete, softened by shuttered glass and a balcony shaded by carefully tended olive trees.
Heather Bowman stood at the wide window with a mug of coffee in her hand. Though her face was newly altered, exhaustion seemed to press through the skin. She wore no makeup, no careful mask today. She was a woman stripped down to her thoughts, her hands trembling once before she stilled them.Project outward calm—always outward calm.
The sound reached her before she saw them. A dull thud, then measured footsteps. They were not hurried. They were trained. She turned her head slowly, as if she had already accepted the inevitable.
The front door opened without a knock. Ian Chase stepped inside, his black jacket unbuttoned, his face unreadable. Behind him, six operators in soft-shell body armor fanned into the space, their Chase Security insignia half-hidden. TwoMontenegrin police officers followed in silence. Words were unnecessary. Control had already shifted the moment Ian entered.
Heather did not flinch. “I suppose you could have called.”
Ian moved farther into the room and gave a single motion with his hand. One of the operators closed the door behind them. “I’m not here for ceremony,” he said flatly.
