Chapter 2 - THE ORDER TO TAKE GABRIEL
Roman did not open the door.
He called Evelyn Shaw instead.
"I need the issuing judge on the line."
Evelyn's answer came immediately.
"I'm already trying."
"Try faster."
Sophia stood in the bedroom with Gabriel in her arms while Roman watched the hallway feed.
The woman claiming to be from Child Protective Services spoke calmly to Owen, but Roman noticed the way her left hand remained near her coat pocket.
The officers were city police, yet none of them looked comfortable.
That meant they believed the paperwork was valid.
It also meant someone had used the system instead of sending more hired men.
Roman hated that kind of enemy.
Bullets were simple.
Paper could ruin a life before anyone realized the signature was false.
A notification appeared on his phone.
Evelyn had sent the full order.
Roman scanned it.
The petition had been filed by Dr. Malcolm Redd, a physician at St. Matthew's.
He claimed Sophia had exhibited postpartum delusions, rejected discharge planning, fled before a mandatory psychiatric evaluation, and removed Gabriel against medical advice.
Sophia stared at the screen.
"I was discharged normally."
"I know."
"Dr. Redd never treated me."
Roman looked at her.
"Do you recognize the name?"
"No."
"Then he was chosen because the court recognizes his."
He enlarged the filing.
There were attached photographs of Sophia sleeping in the stairwell, each timestamped across four separate nights.
Somebody had been documenting her vulnerability while Roman's own security team looked the other way.
Roman opened the intercom.
"Owen, ask the caseworker for her employee identification number."
The woman provided it without hesitation.
Roman texted it to Evelyn.
Thirty seconds later, Evelyn replied.
Valid employee.
Roman's stomach tightened.
"Ask who contacted her supervisor."
Owen did.
The caseworker looked down at her paperwork.
"St. Matthew's social services."
Sophia whispered, "They're everywhere."
Roman shook his head.
"No.
They want you to think they are."
"What's the difference?"
"People who are everywhere don't need you scared.
People with a limited window do."
He checked the order's expiration.
Emergency authority lasted seventy-two hours pending a hearing.
"They're racing a clock."
The phone rang.
Evelyn.
"The judge is on."
Roman answered.
"Judge Vale."
An older man's irritated voice came through.
"Mr. Callaway, I do not appreciate being called at home."
"Did you sign an emergency infant-removal order twelve minutes before midnight?"
Silence.
"I signed three emergency orders tonight."
"Case involving Sophia Maren and Gabriel Maren."
Papers rustled.
"Yes."
Roman's gaze darkened.
"Did you review the supporting medical declaration?"
"Of course."
"Did you speak to the physician?"
Another silence.
"My clerk verified the submission through the hospital's secure portal."
Roman said, "The mother says she has never met him."
Judge Vale snapped, "Then challenge it at hearing."
"I'm challenging it now."
"That is not how this works."
"Tonight it is."
Roman sent a photograph of the forged hospital discharge accusation alongside Sophia's actual discharge summary from the envelope.
"Check the discharge code."
The judge muttered something.
Then his voice changed.
"Stay on the line."
Two minutes later, the woman outside received a call.
Roman watched her posture shift.
The officers stepped away from the door.
Judge Vale returned.
"The hospital record attached to the petition does not match the discharge record in the state health exchange."
"So suspend the order."
"I am issuing a temporary administrative stay."
Sophia nearly collapsed with relief.
"But," the judge added, "if the child is in immediate danger, police retain independent authority to act."
Roman looked at the aerosol canister on the counter.
"Then perhaps they should start with the man who broke in carrying sedative gas."
That produced a very different silence.
Within five minutes, the officers had changed their position.
The caseworker remained in the hallway, visibly furious but professional.
Roman opened the door only after the officers confirmed the removal order was stayed.
He handed them the hospital badge from the intruder and security footage of the break-in.
The lead officer, Sergeant Patel, looked from the unconscious man to the damaged window.
"Mr. Callaway, I strongly recommend everyone leave this apartment."
"Agreed."
"Where will you go?"
Roman gave him a thin smile.
"Somewhere the person watching us won't be told."
Sophia packed almost nothing because she owned almost nothing.
Roman noticed that her entire life fit into one canvas tote.
Two changes of clothes.
Gabriel's hospital blanket.
A bottle.
A folder of documents.
One photograph of an older woman standing beside Sophia at a high school graduation.
"Your mother?"
he asked.
"My foster mother."
"Where is she?"
"Dead."
Roman nodded once.
He understood that kind of answer.
Not the foster part.
The finality.
They moved through a private service corridor to a secure elevator that skipped the lobby.
Roman's building had a tenth-floor mechanical level and, above it, a windowless emergency residence he had built after a kidnapping attempt against one of his executives.
Owen called it the vault.
Sophia hated it the moment she saw the steel door.
"No windows."
"That is the point."
"No exits."
"There are three."
"That I don't know."
Roman looked at her.
"I'll show you all of them."
The promise surprised her.
Inside, Owen set two guards outside and began checking every electronic device for trackers.
Sophia sat at a small table feeding Gabriel.
Roman placed the brown envelope beside her.
"I need everything."
"You have everything."
"No."
He tapped the envelope.
"You knew my face before you met me."
Sophia's shoulders stiffened.
"Because Daniel showed me a picture."
Roman said nothing.
"He told me you were dangerous."
"He was right."
"He also said you were the only person he trusted if something went wrong."
That struck deeper than Roman expected.
"When?"
"The night he disappeared."
Sophia looked down at Gabriel.
"He came to my apartment after midnight.
He looked like someone had beaten him.
His shirt was torn.
He kept checking the street.
He gave me the envelope and told me not to open the sealed report unless I had no other choice."
"Why my building?"
"He said if I ever believed someone was following me, I should go somewhere you owned but not somewhere you lived."
Roman almost smiled despite himself.
"That sounds like Vincent."
"He told me never to go to your house."
"That sounds even more like Vincent."
Sophia continued.
"I asked who he really was.
He said Daniel was not his real name.
Then he said he had done terrible things to stay alive."
Roman's expression hardened.
"What things?"
"He wouldn't tell me."
"What else?"
"He said the baby would make people move faster than they were ready to."
Roman looked at Gabriel.
"He knew about the trust."
"I didn't know there was a trust."
"He did."
"Then why didn't he warn me?"
"Maybe warning you would have made you run sooner."
"I did run."
"Exactly."
Sophia looked at him with open resentment.
"You make everything sound like a chess move."
"In my family, it usually is."
Owen entered carrying a clear evidence bag.
Inside was a tiny black disk no larger than a shirt button.
"Found this sewn into the lining of the baby blanket."
Sophia stood abruptly.
"What?"
"A passive tracker."
Owen placed it on the table.
"No battery.
It responds when scanned from close range."
Roman examined it.
"Hospital-grade asset tag."
Owen nodded.
"Used for infant security bands and equipment."
Sophia grabbed Gabriel's blanket.
"They tagged my son?"
"Maybe the blanket," Owen said.
"Either way, someone could confirm when you were within a few hundred feet."
Roman turned the tag over.
A serial number had been scratched into the casing.
0914-VC.
Roman stared at it.
Vincent Callaway.
9:14.
The exact time the trust activated.
Owen's phone buzzed.
"I've got partial hospital footage."
He mirrored the video to the wall monitor.
The clip showed Sophia's maternity floor at 8:57 a.m. A nurse pushed Gabriel's bassinet toward the nursery.
At 9:03, a man in scrubs entered the frame.
His face was partly hidden by a surgical mask.
He leaned over the bassinet.
At 9:04, the video glitched.
The hallway went black.
At 9:15, the image returned.
The bassinet was still there.
The man was gone.
Sophia pointed.
"Go back."
Owen rewound.
"Stop."
The man in scrubs had turned sideways for less than a second.
Beneath the edge of his mask, a thin scar was visible under his chin.
Sophia's hand flew to her mouth.
"Daniel."
Roman stepped closer to the screen.
The frame was grainy.
The man looked older than the brother Roman remembered, but the posture was unmistakable.
Vincent always carried his left shoulder slightly lower after breaking his collarbone at seventeen.
Roman felt eleven years collapse into a single second.
"That's him."
Sophia stared at the monitor as if it had betrayed her.
"He was at the hospital."
Roman nodded.
"He knew Gabriel was born."
"He could have come into my room."
"He chose not to."
"He let me think he abandoned us."
Roman had no defense for his brother.
"Yes."
Sophia's face changed from grief to anger.
"Then he is not protecting us."
She looked at Gabriel.
"He is using us."
Before Roman could answer, the secure wall phone rang.
Only four people knew the number.
Owen looked at Roman.
Roman answered without speaking.
Vincent's voice came through.
"You found the footage."
Roman's gaze moved to the ceiling.
"How are you inside my secure line?"
"Same way someone used Adrian's access credential."
"Who?"
"That is the wrong question."
"Give me the right one."
Vincent paused.
"Ask who authorized my death certificate."
Roman's voice hardened.
"Our father."
"No."
Another pause.
"He signed the order to bury the body, but someone else gave him the body."
Roman felt cold.
"Who?"
Vincent exhaled.
"Uncle Gideon."
Sophia watched Roman's face.
Vincent continued.
"And Roman, before you decide this is about eighteen percent of a company, understand something."
"What?"
"Gabriel does not inherit eighteen percent."
Roman's eyes narrowed.
"Evelyn read the trust."
"She read the visible trust."
"Meaning?"
"There is a second instrument attached to it."
Vincent's voice became very quiet.
"When a living descendant of mine is verified, the voting block is only the beginning."
The line clicked dead.
Owen stared at Roman.
"What second instrument?"
Roman looked at the black-circle seal on the hospital page.
He finally remembered where else he had seen it.
Not in Vincent's apartment.
May you like
In his father's private vault.
On a file labeled CONTINGENCY: FIRST BLOOD.
