Chapter 27 - The Bloody Passenger
Khloe didn't hesitate. Survival instinct overrode her shock; she sprinted toward our beat-up Subaru parked fifty yards away, shielding Nathan with her body as if mortars were dropping from the sky.
Beneath me, Catherine bucked violently, but her strength was fading. Up close, I could see she wasn't just injured—she was trembling with fever. The blood on her coat wasn't from an external struggle; it was seeping through her linen blouse from a crude, hastily stapled wound along her lower abdomen.
"You fool..." Catherine wheezed, spit bubbling at the corner of her lips. Her fingers clamped onto my jacket lapels with desperate, dying grip. "You think you're saving them? If you take that baby to New Hampshire... Anthony will skin you alive. He doesn't want Nathan for love. Nathan’s blood... it's the only biological match for Anthony’s failing liver. The trust... requires a living direct donor..."
A cold dread washed over me, far colder than the harbor wind. Nathan wasn't just an heir. He was a walking organ harvest.
"You're lying," I snarled, though every sick piece of the puzzle was suddenly locking into place. Anthony’s sudden resurgence, the secret clinics, the offshore depositories.
"Look at my stomach!" she cried out, her eyes rolling back in agony. "Anthony took half my liver three months ago in the Bahamas... and his body rejected it! He needs an infant's regenerative stem cells. If you don't give Nathan to him by noon, Isabella dies in that boathouse... and then he hunts Khloe down!"
From the Subaru, the engine roared to life. The headlights cut through the gloom, blazing directly into my eyes as the horn tapped twice.
I looked down at Catherine. She was a monster who had stolen my wife's womb, who had orchestrated the destruction of our lives. But she was also bleeding to death on a Boston dock, discarded by the very man she had betrayed her family for.
"Get up," I snapped, hauling her off the hood.
"What?" she gasped, clutching her torn abdomen.
"You're coming with us," I said through gritted teeth, dragging her toward the Subaru. "You wanted your son? You're going to help us tear Anthony's empire to the ground, or I leave you here for the harbor rats."
I threw open the rear door and shoved Catherine onto the floorboards. She collapsed against the rubber mats, groaning in sheer agony. I jumped into the passenger seat beside Khloe.
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Khloe was shaking violently, her knuckles bone-white on the steering wheel, Nathan wailing in the backseat car seat. Her eyes darted to the rear-view mirror, staring at her half-dead sister lying in our footwell.
"Step on it," I said, locking the doors. "Lake Winnipesaukee. We have five hours."
