A beep indicated another caller joining the line. Brad’s voice cut in. “I’m in. What’s going on?”
Alex didn’t hesitate. “Henry Byron. He’s alive.”
“Jesus,” Brad muttered. “Alright. We’ll run everything we’ve got. Any idea who put him there?”
“I’d say Gideon Ward, but he’s supposedly locked up,” Alex admitted. “But someone left him for Charlotte to find. This isn’t random.”
Noah’s voice came through next, tense. “I’ll meet you at the hospital.”
Alex pinched the bridge of his nose, knowing what came next.
Noah continued, voice firm, “It’s going to take days to process Charlotte’s house—the entire place is ransacked.”
Alex cursed under his breath. They’d seen part of the mess already, but the whole house? “Damn it.”
“Yeah,” Noah said grimly. “Whoever did this wasn’t just trying to dump a body. They wanted something else.”
Alex’s grip tightened on his phone. “Then we need to find out what.”
Fourteen
Charlotte hadn’t leftHenry’s treatment room since he arrived. She stood near the monitors, arms wrapped around herself, watching the steady but fragile rise and fall of his chest. Every machine beep, every shift in his vitals sent a jolt of anxiety through her. He had been gone for thirty years. Now, he was here—and she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was missing something critical.
The door creaked open behind her. Alex stepped inside, and, without hesitation, wrapped an arm around her, pulling her close. “C’mon, let’s go back to Sophie and Tristan’s. You need rest.”
Charlotte shook her head. “I can’t leave him.”
Suddenly, the sterile, oppressive air of the trauma bay seemed to close in around her. The smell of antiseptic turned metallic in her nose, and the harsh fluorescent lights buzzed like static in her ears. She stood frozen, watching Paul work, watching the shell of a man on the table unravel beneath years that could never be undone.
Henry Byron. He was still alive, technically. But the man he might have been, the one she remembered, the one who vanished thirty years ago was long gone. This... this was a bodymolded by torture and time, not biology. A warped testament to human cruelty hidden behind layers of institutional secrecy.
His frame was skeletal, each rib visible beneath skin that looked more wax than flesh. His arms, once strong, were marked by the craters of too many needles. His lips were cracked, bloodless. She didn’t need a medical degree to see it. Henry had been destroyed from the inside out.
“His blood pressure is tanking again,” a nurse called.
Charlotte heard it like an echo, her mind half-present, the other half still trying to reconcile the fact that this was real.
Paul didn’t flinch. “Keep him on the saline drip, rapid infusion. Two more units of A-positive on the infuser, and where the hell are those platelets?”
The machines beeped and flashed. Numbers dropped. Henry’s chest rose in jagged intervals. Charlotte could hear the wet struggle in each breath, could see the pneumonia spreading its claws through his lungs. The ventilator pushed air into his failing body, but it was a war his body had already lost.
“His lungs are filling,” someone murmured. “Septic. We need to start prepping for ECMO.”
She knew what that meant. A last-ditch effort. One more impossible bid to buy time.
Then the door burst open. Noah. Sharp boots on sterile tile. He moved straight to them, no questions asked.
Paul stayed focused, stethoscope pressed to Henry’s chest. Charlotte watched his hands—usually so controlled—now trembling just slightly.
“His heart’s failing,” Paul said, barely above a whisper. “It’s not enough. I can’t fix this... not after everything that’s been done to him.”
And Charlotte felt it too—a crushing inevitability settling like lead in her chest.
Henry had survived the unspeakable. Only to die on a clean table in a room full of professionals trying desperately to undo decades of damage in minutes.
“Clear!” The shock jolted Henry’s body. Then... nothing. Flatline.
Charlotte buried her head in Alex’s chest. She couldn’t look. Couldn’t breathe. She felt Noah’s hand on her shoulder, grounding her. But it didn’t stop the scream in her blood.
