Chapter 14 - Forty-Eight Floors
The platform dropped one floor and stopped.
Toby screamed.
Elijah lunged.
Charles struck him with the silver cane.
Elijah fell against the conference table.
Morales aimed her weapon.
Charles held the remote above the button.
“Shoot me, and the boy drops.”
I looked through the glass.
Toby’s harness was twisted.
He could slip if the platform moved again.
“Charles,” I said. “You don’t need Noah or Ava.”
He looked amused.
“You think this is negotiation?”
“The archive is public.”
His smile faded.
Federal agents had already distributed copies to international authorities.
The network could not be rebuilt quietly.
Charles needed the children for leverage.
Not research.
Not money.
Escape.
He wanted immunity.
A helicopter waited on the roof.
He planned to trade Toby, Noah, and Ava for passage out of the country.
Elijah stood slowly.
“You never cared about any of us.”
Charles laughed.
“Care is what weak people call poor strategy.”
“You made me believe Naomi was dangerous.”
“She was dangerous.”
“To your business.”
“To the family.”
“There is no family.”
Charles’s eyes hardened.
Elijah moved again.
This time, he did not attack.
He walked toward the control system near the window.
“You wired the platform through the building network.”
Charles pressed the remote.
Nothing happened.
Elijah had entered an emergency shutdown code from his phone.
The platform locked.
Agents on the floor below began securing Toby.
Charles realized his leverage was gone.
He pulled a pistol.
Elijah stepped between him and me.
The shot struck Elijah’s side.
Morales fired.
Charles fell near the window.
His gun slid away.
Elijah collapsed.
I pressed both hands against his wound.
“You’re bleeding badly.”
“Is Toby safe?”
“Yes.”
He closed his eyes.
“Then don’t save me because you forgive me.”
“I don’t.”
“Save me because you’re a doctor.”
“I already told you. I won’t let anyone pay for someone else’s mistakes.”
Emergency surgeons repaired the damage.
Elijah survived.
Toby was pulled through the window below.
He suffered bruises and severe fear, but no major injury.
Charles survived too.
His trial would come later.
The evidence from the tower included recordings of him and Miriam planning the genetic pairings.
One recording captured Charles discussing me.
“She will love the child enough to resist.”
Miriam answered, “Then we take away her credibility.”
They had planned the custody attack before Noah was born.
Every false report had been prepared years earlier.
But one name appeared repeatedly in their files.
Judge Eleanor Vance.
The same judge who granted Elijah custody.
She had received $3 million from a Blackwood foundation.
May you like
And she was still presiding over my parental-rights appeal.
👉 Toby was finally safe and Charles was captured, but the judge who took Noah from Naomi had been paid years before the custody hearing even began.
