Chapter 7 - The Return of the Son-7
I stared up at the ventilation shaft in absolute shock, holding the black ledger against my ribs.
"Grant?" I choked out.
Grant pulled his upper body out of the narrow duct, dropping eight feet down onto the concrete floor, landing in a crouching position. He was covered in black soot, dirt, and fresh scratches, his hands bleeding.
He didn't say a word. He rushed forward, throwing his arms around me, pulling me into a fierce, desperate hug.
"I found you," he gasped into my hair, his chest heaving. "I knew they’d put you down here. My father showed me this old fallout system when I was a kid."
"Where is Oliver?!" I demanded, pulling back to look at his face. "Where did you leave him?!"
"He’s safe," Grant said quickly, his hands comforting my shoulders. "I brought him through the old servant's entrance in the north wing. He’s hidden in my father's old private study behind the library. No one goes in there—Mother thinks it's cursed."
"Grant, look at this!" I raised the black ledger, my voice shaking with raw fury. "Look at what she did to your father! Look at what she’s doing to Oliver!"
Grant took the ledger, his eyes reading the red-lit pages under the emergency light. As he read the entry regarding his father’s induced heart failure, his face went completely gray. His breathing turned shallow, ragged.
"She killed him..." Grant whispered, his voice trembling with a horrifying realization. "My father didn't have a heart attack. She killed him because he was going to leave forty percent of the hospital network to public healthcare funds..."
"And Oliver has FAP, Grant!" I grabbed his coat collar, pulling his focus back to me. "He has the genetic nerve condition from my family line! It’s why his leg collapsed! It’s why he has bruises—his capillary vessels are fragile! He needs the targeted stabilizer injection, Grant! If he doesn't get it within forty-eight hours, the nerve damage in his legs will become permanent!"
Grant closed his eyes, a tear cutting a clean line through the soot on his cheek. When he opened them again, the weak, indecisive man who had let his family dictate his life was gone. In his place stood a man whose entire world had been shattered, leaving behind only the cold desire for justice.
"The stabilizer injection is kept in the master medical vault in Mother’s private suite," Grant said, his voice dropping to a terrifying register. "She keeps a full stock of high-tier gene therapies for her private clients."
"She’s in the main parlor right now with Arthur," I warned. "They have armed guards at every door."
Grant reached into his soaked jacket and pulled out something that made my heart leap—a small, silver master keycard and a heavy brass antique revolver that had belonged to his father.
"Mother forgot that my father gave me the master clearance code for the estate's security grid when I turned twenty-one," Grant said, his fingers tightening around the revolver's handle. "She thinks she controls this house. But tonight, I am taking back my family."
He looked at me, his eyes burning with a fierce, unwavering devotion. "Elise... do you trust me?"
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I looked at the scars on my son's body, then at the man standing before me—a man who had crawled through dark dirt ducts to save the woman he had once failed.
I took his hand. "Let's save our son."
