Chapter 11 - In the Wolf’s Jaw
When Falcon opened his eyes, he was bound to an oak chair inside his own cabin. The room was ransacked. Elena's books lay torn across the floor; the cupboards had been smashed to pieces.
Across from him, sitting in the rocking chair Falcon had hand-carved for Rosie, sat Lucian Vane. Lucian was fifty, his silver hair neatly slicked back, his manicured hands resting on the gold handle of a walking stick. Two massive bodyguards stood behind Falcon's chair, their weapons drawn.
"You gave us quite a chase, Jax," Lucian said, his voice cultured, smooth, dripping with false warmth. "Six years. Millions of dollars spent scrubbing public records, bribing harbor masters, hunting nuns. All for a bastard child of my dead brother."
Falcon spat blood onto the floorboards between Lucian’s polished boots. "She is Elena's daughter. She has nothing of you in her."
"Legally, she has everything," Lucian corrected, tapping his walking stick against the hearthstone. "The Blackwood shipping empire cannot be liquidated without the consent of the direct bloodline. Elena hid the paperwork with that stubborn old nun, but Beatrice finally broke under the pliers."
Falcon's eyes narrowed, pure murderous venom flashing through his bruised face. "You killed Beatrice."
"She was old, Jax. It was a mercy," Lucian shrugged casually. "Now, where is the girl? My men searched the perimeter, but the fresh snowfall is covering her tracks. Tell me where she is, and I will make her death painless. Refuse, and my hounds will track her down, and what happens in the woods won't be clean."
Falcon tested the ropes around his wrists. Thick nylon zip-ties. Strong, but brittle in the sub-zero draft sweeping under the cracked cabin door. Behind his back, his fingers reached for the small ceramic razor blade he kept taped beneath the leather strap of his wristwatch.
"She’s dead, Lucian," Falcon lied, his voice gravelly, keeping his tone dull to mask the small movements of his fingers sawing through the plastic tie. "She fell through the river ice two months ago. The cross on the hill is hers."
Lucian smiled, shaking his head slowly. "You're a great soldier, Jax, but a terrible liar. A man like you doesn't plant fresh white roses beside a cabin for a dead child. He plants them for a living memory."
May you like
Lucian gestured to his guard. "Burn the cabin. We'll release the tracking dogs into the ridge. She can't have gotten far in this weather."
As the guard stepped forward with a can of gasoline, the plastic zip-tie snapped behind Falcon’s back.
