Chapter 16 - The Son She Chose Twice
Eleanor fell against Owen.
For one second, nobody moved.
Then the room erupted.
Rook’s team returned fire through the shattered windows.
Marcus crawled toward his mother.
“Mom.”
Blood spread across her blouse.
Owen pressed both hands over the wound.
“Stay with me.”
Eleanor looked at him.
The son she had not chosen years ago.
“Owen.”
“Don’t talk.”
“I’m sorry.”
He flinched.
“Not now.”
“I chose Marcus because Victor told me you had agreed to work for him.”
Owen stared at her.
“What?”
“I thought you had already chosen him.”
Owen’s face broke.
“He told me you chose Marcus because you loved him more.”
Eleanor started crying.
Victor had not merely kidnapped a family.
He had designed the explanation each person would hate most.
Rook got us out through the rear garden.
Eleanor survived the first ten minutes.
Then twenty.
At the hospital, doctors rushed her into surgery.
Owen stood in the hallway covered in her blood.
Marcus stood six feet away.
Neither brother knew what to do with the other.
Finally Marcus said, “I didn’t know.”
Owen laughed weakly.
“Neither did I.”
It was the closest thing to peace they had managed.
My phone buzzed.
The incapacity hearing had been moved up.
Tomorrow morning.
Victor was accelerating.
Rook said, “We need to disappear tonight.”
I shook my head.
“No. We need to finish it.”
Marcus looked at me.
“How?”
I took out the Halcyon founding papers.
The original company had three founders.
Victor controlled one branch.
My mother controlled another through Palisade.
Charles’s stake had passed to his heirs.
Marcus and Owen.
Victor had spent years dividing the brothers because together they could outvote him on one thing.
Dissolution.
Marcus understood.
“He needed us separated.”
Owen stared at the papers.
“He needed me to hate you.”
“And me to think you were dead.”
I looked at both of them.
“Then stop giving him what he wants.”
Owen’s phone rang.
Victor.
He answered.
Victor’s voice was calm.
“I heard Eleanor was hurt.”
Owen’s face turned cold.
“You tried to kill me.”
Victor sighed.
“No. I tried to save the company from a sentimental mistake.”
Owen looked at Marcus.
Then at me.
“What do you want?”
Victor answered:
“Bring Elena to the hearing tomorrow.”
“Why?”
“Because her mother is finally coming too.”
At the hospital, Marcus and Owen sat on opposite sides of the waiting room until a nurse asked them the same question.
“Which one of you is Mrs. Whitmore’s medical proxy?”
Both answered, “He is,” and pointed at the other.
For a second they stared. Then Owen laughed. It was not a happy laugh, but it was real.
“Great family.”
Marcus rubbed his eyes. “You have no idea.”
“I have some idea.”
They eventually agreed to decide together. Watching them sign the hospital forms side by side affected me more than I expected. Victor had spent twenty years turning every choice into proof that one brother mattered more.
A single shared signature did not heal that. But it contradicted him.
Owen looked at me after the nurse left. “You really think we can dissolve Halcyon?”
“I think we can make Victor fight in daylight.”
“He’s better in daylight than you think.”
“Then we stop assuming darkness is his only advantage.”
Owen studied me. “I see why Celeste picked you.”
The compliment made me angry. “My mother didn’t pick me. She had me.”
He nodded. “Good distinction.”
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