Chapter 15 - The Safehouse in Vermont
By three o'clock in the morning, the armored SUV was speeding north along a deserted highway toward Vermont.
The heavy rain had eased into a steady mist, wiping away the tracks of their miraculous escape from Connecticut.
In the back seat, Ethan had wrapped his wounded shoulder with tactical gauze from Arthur's emergency medical kit.
He sat holding his son, gently rocking the baby as the child drank warm formula from a small travel bottle.
"Where are we going, Arthur?" Ethan asked, looking out at the dark, dense pine trees passing by the tinted windows.
"A private compound near Burlington," Arthur replied, keeping his sharp eyes fixed firmly on the dark road ahead.
"It was established by your father twenty years ago under a dummy corporation name."
"No one knows about it... not the FBI, not the Rostov syndicate, and certainly not your wife."
Ethan looked down at the infant in his arms, his mind flashing back to Victoria's desperate, tearful face in the nursery.
"Did she really love me, Arthur?" Ethan asked quietly, a hollow ache settling deep inside his chest.
"Or was our entire marriage just a long, calculated play to capture this child's key?"
Arthur stayed quiet for a long moment, the windshield wipers clicking steadily back and forth against the glass.
"Victoria Vance is a complicated woman, Ethan," Arthur said thoughtfully.
"Her father was murdered by Rostov's men when she was just a teenager."
"She spent her whole life trying to destroy that syndicate... but along the way, she got consumed by the dark game."
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"She may have loved you, son... but fear makes people do terrifying things to the ones they care about most."
The SUV turned off the main highway onto a hidden gravel driveway, winding deep into the remote Vermont hills.
