Chapter 25 - The Iron Docks
"What does that mean?" I demanded, my hands clenching into fists until my nails drew blood. "What did she hide in my cradle?!"
"We don't have time for ancient history," Julianne interrupted sharply, tapping the radar console. "We're nearing the South Chicago industrial slip. The Calumet River inlet. We dock here, switch to the armored transport, and cross the Indiana border before Eleanor locks down Interstate 90."
The boat slowed, gliding silently through black, sludge-thick water between towering, rusted steel skeletons of abandoned grain silos and rotting docks. The smell of sulfur, diesel, and dead fish hung heavy in the freezing morning mist.
Nicholas moved quickly, helping my father to his feet. My father groaned in agony, his face slick with cold sweat. The blast at the manor had cracked several ribs, and shrapnel was embedded deep in his flank.
"He won't make it to Indiana without medical attention," Nicholas stated coldly, inspecting the wound. "He’s hemorrhaging internally."
"He dies when I have the key, and not a second before," Julianne replied without a trace of remorse. She tied off the bowlines against a rusted bollard and kicked open the cabin’s forward locker. She pulled out a heavy black duffel bag and threw it at Nicholas. "Glock 19s, ceramic plates, encrypted radios. Gear up."
I stood frozen on the deck, staring at this woman who gave birth to me, feeling an emptiness deeper than any ocean. She was Eleanor’s mirror image. Elegant, lethal, completely stripped of humanity.
"You're not taking another step until you tell me," I said, my voice dangerously steady.
Julianne stopped, turning slowly to face me on the slick concrete of the pier. "Tell you what, child?"
"What did Eleanor take from me today?" I touched the jagged, butchered ends of my hair at the nape of my neck. "She laughed when she held the shears. She said, *'It’s only hair. It’ll grow back.'* But her eyes were hungry. She looked like she had just stolen my soul."
Julianne stared at me for five agonizing seconds. Then, slowly, she reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a small, velvet-lined jeweler’s box.
She snapped it open.
May you like
Inside, resting on black velvet, was a silver hair clip shaped like a serpent swallowing its own tail—the ancient crest of the Sterling family’s original bloodline.
"It wasn't about the hair, Clara," Julianne said quietly. "It was about what was woven into it."
