Chapter 7 - The Bullet Meant for Roman
Roman did not feel pain.
The man behind him did.
Dominic Shaw collapsed with blood spreading across his shoulder.
Lucy had shifted her aim at the final second and shot the guard holding Roman.
Lorenzo burst through the medical entrance below.
The lights failed.
Council members screamed and overturned chairs.
Roman seized Dominic’s weapon and fired at two guards near Clara’s platform.
Clara jumped before it descended completely.
Roman caught her arm and pulled her onto the chamber floor.
Sebastian shouted for Lucy.
She remained frozen with the pistol in her hand.
Clara reached her first.
“Come with me.”
Lucy looked toward Sebastian.
Years of conditioning held her in place.
He extended one hand.
“You belong beside me.”
Michael’s voice continued through the live feed.
“You belong to yourself.”
Lucy dropped the weapon.
Sebastian’s face filled with rage.
He struck a control beneath the table.
Steel barriers divided the chamber into sections.
Gas began entering through ceiling vents.
Isabella appeared beside the archive door.
“Roman!”
He pushed Clara and Lucy toward her.
Lorenzo covered them while council members pounded against locked exits.
Sebastian disappeared through a private passage.
Roman followed.
Clara grabbed his sleeve.
“The ledger.”
“Take Lucy.”
“You cannot go alone.”
“I am not.”
Lorenzo joined him.
Isabella unlocked the archive.
Shelves contained decades of handwritten ledgers, photographs, blackmail recordings, and financial records.
Clara began placing drives into a medical transport bag.
Lucy stood near the doorway.
“They will burn the room.”
“How?”
“Thermite charges inside the walls.”
Isabella found the control system.
A countdown showed three minutes.
Clara looked toward Lucy.
“Can you stop it?”
The girl hesitated.
“Sebastian said only he had the code.”
“What did he teach you about his passwords?”
Lucy approached the panel.
“He uses the date his first son died.”
Clara’s father.
Julian Vale.
Evelyn had never known the exact date.
Lucy entered one.
Rejected.
A second.
Rejected.
Clara remembered the story her mother told about Michael, the man she believed was Clara’s father.
“He died on October nineteenth.”
Lucy entered the date.
The charges disarmed.
Clara stared at her.
Sebastian had memorialized Julian’s murder as a security code.
Roman and Lorenzo pursued him through the medical level.
They found an operating theater prepared for Clara.
Forged consent papers rested beside surgical instruments.
A refrigerated container bore her name.
Dominic’s earlier claim had been true.
Sebastian planned to remove part of Clara’s liver.
But the theater contained a second bed.
Roman’s name appeared on the chart.
His heart had been designated for another recipient.
Sebastian never intended Roman to inherit Halcyon.
The ceremony was a trap to harvest both blood heirs and place Lucy under the control of the council.
Lorenzo examined the recipient file.
“It is blank.”
Roman understood.
“Not blank. Hidden.”
A shot struck the doorframe.
Sebastian stood at the opposite end of the corridor.
Despite his illness, his hand remained steady.
“You could have ruled all of this.”
Roman aimed back.
“You mistook captivity for inheritance.”
Sebastian smiled.
“You sound like your mother.”
“You mean the woman you imprisoned.”
“I gave her a life.”
“You gave her rooms she could not leave.”
“I gave you an empire.”
“Antonio gave me his name.”
“And tried to kill you when it became inconvenient.”
The words landed because they were true.
Sebastian continued.
“Every father decides what his son is worth.”
Roman replied, “Then you have made my decision easy.”
Before either fired, Lorenzo stepped between them.
Roman turned sharply.
“What are you doing?”
Lorenzo kept his weapon aimed at Sebastian.
But his body blocked Roman’s shot.
Sebastian smiled.
“My chosen soldier.”
Lorenzo’s face showed agony.
“You raised me to obey.”
Roman stared at him.
“You said you never met him.”
“I remembered after Isabella spoke.”
Memories of Saint Gabriel’s had returned.
Men teaching boys to shoot.
Sebastian observing from behind glass.
Dominic placing successful recruits inside criminal families.
Lorenzo had been assigned to Roman twelve years earlier.
“Did you report on me?” Roman asked.
“At first.”
“How long?”
“Two years.”
“And after?”
“I stopped.”
Sebastian laughed.
“He never stopped. He simply changed what he told himself.”
Lorenzo’s hand trembled.
Roman kept his gun ready.
“Move.”
Sebastian spoke softly.
“Kill Roman, and you take his place.”
Lorenzo looked toward the man who created him.
Then toward Roman, the man he had chosen.
He lowered his weapon.
“I already have a place.”
Sebastian fired.
Lorenzo shoved Roman aside.
The bullet struck Lorenzo beneath the ribs.
Roman fired twice.
Sebastian disappeared behind the closing steel door.
Roman caught Lorenzo before he hit the floor.
“Stay awake.”
Lorenzo coughed blood.
“The recipient file.”
“What about it?”
“I saw the hidden code.”
“Whose name?”
Lorenzo struggled to speak.
“Evelyn.”
Roman stared at him.
May you like
Sebastian had prepared to take Roman’s heart for Clara’s mother.
Continue to the next part: Roman learns Evelyn’s disability may have been deliberately caused, and she has secretly negotiated with Sebastian to receive the transplant that would save her life.
