Chapter 11 - THE WOLF ROUTE
Leah had taken Maximilian’s ring.
She admitted it before he could order the estate sealed.
“Adrian and I designed an emergency route with Julian,” she said. “If one of us was arrested by compromised authorities, the other would place a Russo signet where it could be seen. It means the transport is false and the prisoner must run.”
“You staged his escape.”
“I helped him survive an abduction.”
“Without telling me.”
“You were ready to send armed men after Dominic. We needed him to believe Adrian was isolated.”
Maximilian’s anger shook the glassware. “Everyone keeps using my name while deciding what I am allowed to know.”
Clara understood the fury, but not his surprise. “That is how this family has treated every person without your power.”
The words silenced him.
Adrian contacted them through an encrypted channel. He had escaped the transport before Dominic’s men reached the overpass and followed one attacker to a waterfront garage. There he found the missing deputy marshal alive and evidence that Julian had been moved repeatedly among private properties.
The most recent location was hidden behind a code: WOLF-3.
Clara’s ring bore a wolf beneath three stars.
The crest was not merely heraldry. Julian had modified the third star into a tiny directional notch. When aligned with Maximilian’s signet and placed over a map of family properties, it pointed toward a hunting lodge in the Berkshires.
They traveled with federal agents from an uncompromised office. The lodge was empty, but a basement medical room held restraints, intravenous bags, and six months of pharmacy deliveries.
A strand of dark hair on the pillow matched Julian’s DNA.
So did blood found beneath a chair.
On the wall, scratched repeatedly into plaster, was one word:
CLARA.
She touched the letters and nearly collapsed.
Maximilian caught her, the way he had caught her in the sleet, but this time he asked before holding her tighter.
“May I?”
She nodded.
An agent found a recently burned transfer sheet. One line remained readable: maternity status confirmed, priority revised.
May you like
Dominic no longer needed Clara only for evidence.
He wanted the unborn child.
