Eleonora slammed the heavy door of the penthouse shut. She threw the deadbolt and locked the chain.
She leaned her back against the wood. Her chest heaved. She couldn't pull enough oxygen into her lungs.
She set Noah down on the floor. She dropped to her knees and grabbed his small shoulders. She checked his arms, his legs, his face.
"Are you hurt?" she asked, her voice cracking. "Did he hurt you?"
Noah shook his head. He reached out his small hand and placed his palm flat against her wet cheek.
Eleonora closed her eyes. A single tear slipped out. She pulled him into a tight hug, burying her face in his hair.
"Go play, baby," she whispered. "Mommy needs a minute."
Noah patted her back, then walked over to his small wooden easel in the corner of the living room.
Half an hour later, Eleonora's hands finally stopped shaking. She walked into the kitchen and poured a glass of warm milk.
She carried it out to the living room. Noah was sitting on the floor, coloring furiously with a black crayon.
"Here you go, sweetie," she said.
She looked down at the paper.
Her stomach dropped.
Noah had drawn a man. The shoulders were broad. The eyebrows were sharp and angry. It was a crude drawing, but it was unmistakably Butler.
Next to the man, Noah had drawn a smaller stick figure of a little boy with black hair, reaching out to hold the tall man's hand. Above the figures, he had carefully colored a bright blue butterfly.
A sharp pain pierced Eleonora's heart. Guilt and sorrow choked her. She reached down and quickly flipped the paper over.
"Good drawing," she lied, her voice tight.
She walked away, her jaw set. She would never let Butler know about this child. Never.
The temperature in the Holloway Group executive office was freezing.
Butler stood by the floor-to-ceiling window. The cold emptiness in his eyes was a violent contrast to the chaotic rage boiling beneath his pale skin.
He spun around. He swept his arm across his massive desk. Laptops, crystal paperweights, and stacks of files crashed to the floor.
Jesse Meyer stood by the door, completely still.
"Lock down the city," Butler roared. His chest heaved. "Every airport. Every seaport. Every train station. I want her found!"
Jesse swallowed hard. "Yes, sir."
The office door opened. Dr. Gustavo Velazquez walked in. He wore a white lab coat. He ignored the mess on the floor.
"Butler," Gustavo said, his voice grim. "It's Jaquez."
Butler froze. The rage in his eyes flickered. Jaquez was his younger brother. The only family he had left.
"What happened?" Butler demanded.
"His blood condition has mutated," Gustavo explained. "The conventional treatments are failing. His organs are starting to shut down."
Butler crossed the room and grabbed Gustavo by the collar of his lab coat. "Fix him. You have unlimited funds. Fix him!"
Gustavo didn't flinch. "I can't. But there is one person who might."
Butler loosened his grip. "Who?"
"Aura," Gustavo said. "The underground doctor on the dark web. Rumor says she developed a synthetic serum that cures genetic blood disorders. But she's a ghost. No one can find her."
Butler let go of the doctor. His eyes turned ice-cold.
"Put a ten-million-dollar bounty on the dark web," Butler ordered. "Find this Aura. I don't care what it takes."
Butler sank into his leather chair. He rubbed his temples. His head pounded. But every time he closed his eyes, he saw Eleonora's face.
In the penthouse, Eleonora's encrypted phone buzzed violently on the kitchen counter.
The screen flashed red. A Level One alert.
She snatched the phone. It was a secure message from Leo in Geneva.
Mom. Holloway just dropped a $10M bounty for 'Aura' on the dark web. They are running a massive trace program trying to find your IP address.
Eleonora stared at the screen. A cold, mocking smile touched her lips.
Butler was hunting her down to save his brother.
She typed rapidly.
Build five dummy servers in Russia and route the trace back to the Pentagon. Cut them off.
She locked the phone. She walked into the bathroom and stared at her reflection in the mirror. She wasn't the weak girl who let them cut her open anymore.
Butler sat in the dark security room in the basement of the Holloway building.
The glowing monitors illuminated his face. He watched the security footage from the school hallway on a loop.
He watched the woman slap him. He paused the video. He zoomed in on her face.
The resolution was grainy. She looked different. Her clothes were expensive. Her posture was arrogant.
But the eyes. He knew those eyes.
His fingers gripped the edge of the metal desk so hard his knuckles popped.
The body in the morgue was a fake. She had played him. She had watched him mourn a pile of ash.
A dark, obsessive hunger flared in his chest.
"If it's you," Butler whispered to the frozen image on the screen, "I will make you pay."
