BLOODLINE DEBT: SHADOWS BENEATH THE SILENT VOWS

The cold water chased them through the concrete drainage pipes until they emerged into an abandoned rail switching yard on the city’s industrial periphery. Dawn had not yet broken. A torrential autumn rain masked their tracks as Marco hot-wired a mud-splattered utility van parked near a maintenance shed.

Roman collapsed onto the metal floor in the rear, his face the color of wet chalk. The bleeding had broken through all three layers of gauze; dark crimson pooled beneath his ribs, staining the rusted iron floor of the vehicle.

Nora fell beside him immediately, ripping her medical bag open. Her blue scrubs were soaked through with filthy runoff and blood. “He’s going into hypovolemic shock,” she told Marco, who slammed the rear doors and threw the van into gear. “Find clean water, alcohol, and a power outlet within ten minutes or his heart stops.”

“Ten minutes out from the ironworks safehouse,” Marco yelled through the wire partition, tires screaming against wet gravel.

Nora jammed an IV cannula into Roman’s forearm, hanging a bag of saline from a rusted hook on the ceiling. Roman’s eyes fluttered, his fingers catching her wrist with weak, trembling pressure.

“Mia...” he whispered, his voice barely audible over the roaring engine.

“Save your breath,” Nora said, applying a pressure bandage with cold efficiency, ignoring the tremor in her own hands.

“Mercer’s tablet... did you... grab it?”

Nora paused, reaching into the deep pocket of her medical coat. Her fingers closed around the cold, shattered glass of the encrypted data pad she had scooped from the catwalk before the water took it. “I have it. But it won't do Mia any good if you bleed out before we unlock it.”

Roman managed a faint, bloody grin. “The marrow database... Mercer didn't tell you the truth. Petrov doesn't have the donor.” His breathing hitched, shallow and ragged. “The donor... is on my private island. My half-brother’s daughter.”