Chapter 3 - A Traitor Behind the Glass
Declan ordered the entire hospital floor searched.
Nobody suspicious was found.
The photograph had been taken from another building across Cambridge Street, likely through a high-powered lens.
By noon, the sender’s number had disappeared from the network.
Sarah hated what came next.
The hospital room transformed into a command center.
Laptops.
Encrypted phones.
Security diagrams.
Armed men in suits.
Declan had promised protection without a cage.
Instead, danger had built the cage for him.
Nolan placed the threatening photograph on a large screen.
“The line about the baby not belonging to you could mean they think Sarah slept with someone else,” he said.
“She didn’t,” Declan answered immediately.
Sarah gave him a tired look.
“Thank you for volunteering my personal history.”
Nolan suddenly became deeply interested in the screen.
Declan ignored him.
“Other interpretation?”
Nolan cleared his throat.
“They don’t believe you deserve the heir.”
Sarah understood first.
“This is about succession.”
Declan looked at her.
“If I have a child, everything changes.”
“For whom?”
“Anyone expecting control after my death.”
Three names immediately mattered.
Evelyn Hayes.
Declan’s cousin Vincent.
And Nolan himself.
Under old syndicate agreements, if Declan died without an heir, leadership would be decided by a council vote. Vincent Hayes had spent years positioning himself as the obvious successor.
A child complicated that.
Even an unborn child.
Especially one carried by Sarah Mitchell, a woman without criminal-family blood or elite political connections.
“This isn’t just an attack against me,” Sarah said. “Someone thinks the pregnancy threatens their future.”
Declan nodded.
The investigation widened.
Sarah’s apartment was searched.
Her kitchen was clean.
Supplements from her bathroom cabinet tested negative.
But one object was missing.
Her spare office access card.
Sarah had not noticed because she rarely used it.
The card had disappeared sometime during the previous six weeks.
Someone had been inside her apartment.
That meant the poisoner knew where she lived.
Knew her routine.
Knew she was pregnant before Declan did.
“How?” Sarah whispered.
Declan looked at her.
“How did they know?”
She had hidden the pregnancy completely.
No social media.
No family announcement.
No baby purchases.
The only people who knew were Sarah, her obstetrician and—
She stopped.
“What?”
“My sister.”
Declan straightened.
Sarah’s younger sister, Rebecca Mitchell, lived in Providence.
She was twenty-eight, recently divorced, and had almost no connection to Declan’s world.
“I told Becca after the twelve-week scan.”
“When?”
“A month ago.”
Declan reached for his phone.
Sarah grabbed it.
“No armed men at my sister’s apartment.”
“If someone has been tracking—”
“She has a six-year-old daughter.”
Declan paused.
“Two plainclothes agents.”
“They are not agents.”
“Two boring accountants with guns.”
Sarah nearly smiled.
“Fine.”
They called Rebecca.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Sarah’s pulse climbed.
“Try her work.”
Rebecca taught art at a private elementary school.
The receptionist answered.
Rebecca had called in sick.
Sarah sat upright despite the doctor’s instructions.
“Something’s wrong.”
Declan ordered the car.
They reached Providence seventy-two minutes later.
Rebecca’s front door was unlocked.
Sarah pushed past security before anyone could stop her.
“Becca!”
The apartment was silent.
A cereal bowl sat on the kitchen counter.
A child’s pink backpack rested near the stairs.
Sarah’s terror became physical.
“Lucy?”
No answer.
Declan checked the bedrooms.
Empty.
Then Nolan called from the garage.
They found Rebecca’s car still parked inside.
The driver’s door was open.
On the concrete beside it lay Rebecca’s phone.
Sarah picked it up.
The screen was cracked but functional.
The most recent text had been sent the previous night.
To Sarah.
But Sarah had never received it.
She opened the message.
I THINK SOMEONE IS FOLLOWING ME. CALL ME.
The message remained marked unsent.
Declan searched the device.
There were six photographs taken during the previous week.
The same black SUV appeared outside Rebecca’s school.
Outside her apartment.
At a grocery store.
Then Sarah found a final image.
A man standing near the SUV.
Vincent Hayes.
Declan’s cousin.
Sarah turned the phone toward him.
Declan’s expression did not change.
That frightened her more than anger would have.
“Declan.”
“I see him.”
“Tell me you’re not going to do something insane.”
“I am going to ask Vincent a question.”
“With what, a gun?”
“With a sentence.”
“You don’t have sentences. You have interrogations.”
Nolan entered the garage.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“We found something upstairs.”
Inside Rebecca’s bedroom, a jewelry box had been emptied onto the bed.
Nothing valuable appeared stolen.
But beneath the scattered necklaces was an envelope addressed to Sarah.
Her sister’s handwriting was on the front.
Sarah opened it.
Inside was a flash drive.
And a handwritten note.
Sarah, if anything happens to me, this started before your pregnancy. Mom was right about the Hayeses. I found the newspaper archive she hid from us. Your father did not die in a construction accident.
Sarah read the sentence twice.
Declan watched her face change.
“What does that mean?”
“My father died when I was eight.”
She looked at him.
“He worked at the Boston docks.”
Declan felt something cold move through him.
“What year?”
Sarah told him.
1999.
The year Declan’s father, Patrick Hayes, had taken control of the port through a violent labor war.
Sarah inserted the flash drive into Nolan’s laptop.
One scanned newspaper clipping appeared.
The headline read:
DOCKWORKER KILLED IN CRANE FAILURE; UNION QUESTIONS SAFETY
The dead man was Michael Mitchell.
Sarah’s father.
Attached was a second document.
A witness statement that had never appeared in the official investigation.
It alleged that Michael Mitchell had discovered illegal shipments being moved through Hayes-controlled warehouses.
He planned to contact federal authorities.
Two days later, he died.
Sarah’s hands shook.
Declan read the final line.
Witness reports seeing Patrick Hayes and Evelyn Hayes arguing with victim hours before death.
Sarah stepped away from him.
“My father knew your family.”
Declan did not deny it.
“I didn’t know.”
“How could you not know?”
“I was seven.”
The answer landed hard.
They had both been children.
Sarah’s anger had nowhere clean to go.
Then Nolan’s phone rang.
He listened for ten seconds.
His face darkened.
“We found Rebecca.”
Sarah lunged toward him.
“Where?”
“Rhode Island Hospital.”
“Is she alive?”
“Yes.”
Sarah nearly collapsed with relief.
“And Lucy?”
“Safe. Police found her at a neighbor’s apartment.”
“What happened to Becca?”
Nolan looked at Declan.
“She was hit by a car.”
Sarah covered her mouth.
“Witness says the driver never slowed down.”
Declan looked again at Vincent’s photograph.
The war had just changed.
It was no longer about poison.
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It was about a twenty-seven-year-old secret.
And someone was willing to kill an entire family to keep it buried.
