Chapter 25: Unannounced Intrusion

Valkyrie’s POV

The sound of the gunshot heard outside barely died down in the howling coastal wind when the front door burst open.

A cold blast of wet air rushed into the entrance, snuffing out the weak yellow glow of the oil lamp and throwing the cottage into a faint, moonlit half-shade. The odours of ozone, damp wool, and raw salt filled the little room, instantly replacing the usual smells of lavender and antiseptic which had always kept my panic under control.

My heart beat hard against my ribs, like a bird was trapped in it. All my instincts were shouting at me to push Lachlan into the small corner behind the linen press and reach for my small folding knife. I took two steps backwards, my shoulder hitting the edge of the kitchen table and my body covering my son as he sat frozen on the rug, holding onto his wooden chess piece.

The shadow stepped across the broken threshold.

My throat constricted fully, and the knife slipped out of my trembling fingers, dropping silently on the old rug.

Tall, broad shoulders, wearing a long, wet dark wool coat. His dark hair was clinging to his temples.

Kaelen.

Four years.

Four years of hiding in damp coastal rentals, scrubbing my identity clean, changing phone lines, and waking up in cold sweats certain that his face would be the last thing I ever saw.

And now, he was standing on my floorboards.

He wasn't like the kind of man who seemed to be a corporate magnate or someone in control of a multi-billion-dollar empire; instead, he looked more like a man who had gone through hell in order to find a ghost. His jaw was held in a rigid line, with a dark muscle jumping in his cheek, yet his striking, terrifying, and utterly unforgettable silver eyes were completely directed at me. Blazing with a blend of raw, agonizing pain, deadly fury, and a desperate, suffocating disbelief that made my knees weak.

"Kaelen," I whispered, the name shattering into a thousand fragments as it tore out of my raw throat.

He said nothing and made a single heavy, careful step forward, the soles of his wet leather boots making a crunching sound on the splintered wood of the doorframe. His eyes moved down my pale face, staying on the hollows of my cheeks, the dark circles carved beneath my eyes, before settling on the left side of my collarbone where my dark sweater had slipped.

He took a sharp, ragged breath. His hands reached out—just by an inch, trembling violently before he caught himself and balled his fingers into a tight, white-knuckled fist at his side.

"You're alive," he managed to say. His voice was lower than I'd remembered, rough, with no trace of corporate composure. "You're actually here."

"Don't come any closer," I choked out, forcing my voice to sound harsh, pushing all the hatred and survival instinct I had built up over the four years to the surface. I took a step back; my heel bumped on the leg of the chair Lachlan was sitting on. "Don't step into this house, Kaelen."

"Mommy?"

Lachlan's little, sweet voice broke the suffocating tension in the room. He didn't hide behind my skirt; he jumped to his feet, moved around my side to stand right next to me, reaching up with his small hand to take my fingers.

He looked straight up at Kaelen with his clear, bright silver eyes.

He froze completely. Air escaped from his chest in a rough gasp, his broad shoulders turned stiff as iron. He looked down at the four-year-old boy who was standing by me, gazing into the replica of his own eyes, noticing the messy dark hair, the high cheekbones, and the quiet, fearless intelligence coming from my son's small frame.

Kaelen dropped to one knee right there on the damp floorboards, his heavy coat settling around him in the dark.

“My God…” Kaelen breathed, his voice breaking into a harsh, choking whisper. He stared at Lachlan, reaching out with his hand towards the boy before stopping in mid-air, afraid to touch him, like a single touch would turn the child into smoke. “Valkyrie, my God, what have you done?”

"I protected him!" I screamed, my tears finally breaking through my eyelids, burning my cold cheeks. "I protected him from you! From your mother! From the family which destroyed all that I had ever loved!"

“I didn't know," Kaelen snarled, rising slowly, his eyes blazing with a dreadful, wild intensity which caused the shadows in the room to grow deeper. "Four years, Valkyrie! For four years you kept my son hidden in the mud! You let me believe you sold me for a payout! You let me live in that empty penthouse hating you, while you were raising my boy in a drafty cottage on the edge of the world!"

"Because your mother held a knife to Chloe's throat!" I shouted back, stepping directly between him and Lachlan, my chest rising and falling as I faced the ghost of my past. "Your mother framed me by using that dummy file, Kaelen! She told me that if I didn't sign the confession and disappear, she'd switch off my sister's life support! How could I possibly have any other choice?"

Kaelen flinched like I had slapped him in the face. The anger in his eyes disappeared, giving way to a deep, torturing wave of horror as the full force of what I had said reached him.

"The dummy file..." Kaelen whispered, taking a slow, painful step towards me. "I know all about the dummy file, Val. I discovered the compiler logs two hours ago. I know she framed you."

"You... you know?"

"I know," he said, coming to a halt just two feet from me. The heat coming off his body was too intense, enveloping me as if it were a thick blanket. "And I've come to bring you home."

Before I had time to work out what he had said, a cold and mocking voice resounded from the dark hallway behind me.

“He is not bringing anyone home, Kaelen,” Dr. Hamish Croft said, stepping into the room illuminated by the moon.

He was completely wet, his face pale and holding a heavy tactical sidearm with the barrel aimed straight at Kaelen's chest. But it wasn’t the gun in Hamish’s hand that made my blood turn to ice.

Behind Hamish, Chloe leaned weakly against the doorframe of the bedroom.

She was terribly pale, and her skin was nearly transparent in the moonlight; standing directly behind her, with his hand tightly around her thin and weak arm, was a tall man in a dark suit, one of Victoria Vance's personal enforcers.

In his other hand, he had a small black remote detonator which was wired directly to the auxiliary power pack providing power for Chloe’s ventilator.

“Step out of the house, Kaelen,” Hamish said softly, his thumb pulling back the hammer of his gun. “Or we execute the override code right now, and your sister-in-law dies on these floorboards.”