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Home / Werewolf / ALHPA ABRAM: And the four daughter / Chapter 111 - Chapter 120

All Chapters of ALHPA ABRAM: And the four daughter: Chapter 111 - Chapter 120

121 Chapters

51

"Where the hell is the rest of it, Pietro? This envelope feels light. Way too light for a week's worth of protection on the northern passage." Abram leaned against the rusted doorframe of the warehouse, his shadow stretching long and jagged across the concrete floor. He didn't look at the gun tucked into Pietro’s waistband. He looked at the grease stain on the man's undershirt.Pietro wiped sweat from his upper lip, his eyes darting toward the two bruisers standing behind Abram. "Look, Silas... the coast guard stepped up patrols. We had to dump half the crate near the reef. I’m doing my best here, okay? Nobody wants a stir.""A stir?" Abram’s jaw creaked. He stepped forward, the heavy thud of his boots echoing like a gavel. He grabbed Pietro’s throat, slamming him back against a stack of wooden crates. "I don't pay for 'best.' I pay for results. If the coast guard is a problem, you handle it. If you can't handle it, I handle you. Get the drift?""I... I’ll get it! I’ll have the rest b

51

"Check the frequency again, Elara. That hum isn't coming from the village power grid. It’s too steady, too clean." Abram jammed his thumb against the receiver, his knuckles white against the black plastic. He stood in the center of their cramped kitchen, his boots tracking mud onto the floorboards.Elara didn't look up from the tangle of wires on the table. She stripped a casing with her teeth, spitting the rubber out. "I told you. The expansion was too loud, Abram. You bought off too many locals. Now the air is screaming.""I bought off the ones that mattered. The rest are too scared to breathe." Abram’s jaw creaked as he ground his teeth. He paced to the window, pulling the moth-eaten curtain back just enough to see the cliff path. "We’re ghosts. Ghosts don't make noise.""Ghosts don't run the smuggling routes for the entire coast, you idiot!" Elara slammed her palm against the table, the filleting knife rattling. "You traded a throne for a dock, but you're still playing the King. A

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"Go back to sleep, Abram. It’s just the wind rattling the shutters." Elara’s voice was a low, steady anchor in the dark, but her body was already a coiled spring. She lay perfectly still, her eyes fixed on the sliver of moonlight cutting across the bedroom floor.Abram grunted, a deep, guttural sound of exhaustion. He didn't wake. He didn't move. The man who once jumped at the sound of a falling leaf was buried under months of bone-deep fatigue, salt-rot, and the crushing weight of his new "kingdom" of fish scales and smuggling.Elara slipped out of the sheets. She didn't make a sound. The floorboards didn't dare creak under her feet. She’d spent the last three nights oiling them in secret, a "Ghost’s Vigil" that Abram hadn't noticed.She reached under the bed. Her fingers closed around the cold, familiar grip of a serrated filleting knife. Not a tactical blade. Not a Silas heirloom. Just a tool for cleaning fish.The first floorboard groaned in the hallway.Elara’s pulse didn't race.

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"Tell me who signed the check, or I’ll start with the fingers and work my way to your tongue." Elara’s voice was a flat, dry scrape against the silence of the nursery. She didn't look like the woman who baked bread in the village. She looked like a ghost soaked in red.The man on the floor groaned, his breath a wet, rattling sound. Blood bubbled from his nose, staining the white rug. "I—I don't know names. We just get the pings."Elara stepped on his pinned foot. Hard. The filleting knife groaned against the floorboards. "Wrong answer.""Ahh! F**k! Stop! It was a blind contract!" He clawed at the air, his eyes rolling. "The Shadow Market... a private client! They wanted the kid alive. That's all I know! I swear!""A private client doesn't send three cleaners to a Mediterranean sh**hole for a vacation." Elara leaned down, her face inches from his. Her skin was cold. Clammy. "Why the boy? Why my son?""Potential..." the man wheezed, his head lolling back against the doorframe. "Project.

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"Tie the ankles, Abram. Double the rope or the tide will bring them back to the beach by sunrise." Elara wiped a smear of dark grease across her forehead. She didn't look back at the three heavy bundles lying on the deck of the trawler.Abram gripped the wheel. His knuckles were raw, the skin split and weeping. "I’m on it. Just keep an eye on the boy.""He's not going anywhere." Elara looked at the plastic crate tucked into the corner of the cabin. Leo sat there, his wide, dark eyes fixed on the black water rushing past the hull. He wasn't sleeping. He hadn't made a sound since the first throat was cut.The trawler chugged deeper into the Mediterranean. The lights of the village were pinpricks of weak yellow against the black silhouette of the cliffs. The air smelled of diesel, stale tobacco, and the copper tang of the deck.Abram cut the engine. The sudden silence was a physical weight. The boat drifted, rocking in the low swells. He walked toward the stern, his boots squelching on t

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"Where the hell is the boy, Elara?" Abram slammed the front door, his boots heavy with the stench of the docks. He dropped a string of fresh sea bass onto the wooden counter.Elara didn't look up from the radio she was rewiring. Her fingers were steady, but the soldering iron shook just enough to sizzle. "He’s at the tide pools. Watching the crabs again.""Alone? He's barely three." Abram wiped sweat from his neck, his shirt sticking to his skin. "I told you, he needs to be around the village kids. Needs to learn how to lead, not just how to sit in the dirt.""He doesn't want to lead them, Abram. He wants to see how they work." Elara finally turned, her eyes hard. "He doesn't play. He dissects. Last week I found his wooden blocks lined up by weight. Perfect rows. He hasn't touched the stuffed wolf you bought him since the day he pulled the eyes out to see what was behind the glass."Abram laughed, a dry, proud sound. "That’s the Silas blood. Analytical. The kid’s a genius.""It’s not

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"He was loud, and then he was quiet." Leo didn't look up from the small, jagged piece of limestone in his hands. He dragged the rock across the wooden porch, the screeching sound sets my teeth on edge."Leo, look at me." I grabbed his chin. Hard. I forced his head up until his dark, "Silas eyes" met mine. There was no fear there. No guilt. Just a flat, glass-like surface. "Mateo almost died. Do you understand that? He stopped breathing because you sat there and watched.""He was noisy." Leo’s voice was too steady for a three-year-old. Too melodic. "The water went in his mouth. Then he stopped making the noise. It was better."My hand went numb. I let go of his face like I’d touched a live wire. The "Cerebral Demon" wasn't just a part of my past anymore. It was sitting on my porch in a pair of stained overalls. I didn't see a toddler. I saw a perfected version of every cold-blooded instinct I’d ever tried to bury."Abram, we have to talk. Now!" I slammed the screen door so hard the mes

57

"Take the boy and go through the cellar." Abram shoved the Beretta into his waistband, his chest heaving. The salt on his skin had turned to a cold, sticky film."I'm not leaving you here to die for a 'King' who won't even mourn you." I gripped the handle of the heavy kitchen knife. My knuckles were white. Blood from the earlier struggle had dried into a stiff, brown crust on my floral nightgown."It’s not an ask, Elara. Get him to the boat." Abram grabbed my shoulders. His fingers dug in. Hard. He was shaking. Not from the fear of the black cars crawling up the gravel path, but from the raw, jagged realization that the silence of the village was a lie."The boats are already in the harbor, Abram. We’re surrounded." I looked at the window. The searchlights from the tactical ships were sweeping the cliffs. White knives cutting the dark. "The 'Glass Empire' didn't just crack. It's dust."Leo sat on the floor between us. He wasn't crying. He wasn't hiding. He had a small, sharp stick in

58

"Hand me the whiskey." Abram didn’t look at me. He kept his eyes on the horizon, where the sea swallowed the sun. His fingers traced the jagged 'S' branded into his chest. The skin around it was still pink, still angry."You've had enough." I stayed in the shadows of the porch. My hand rested on my stomach. Flat. For now. "The doctor said your liver is already doing most of the heavy lifting for this family.""The doctor is a local drunk with a shaky hand." Abram let out a dry, rattling cough. He leaned back in the creaking chair. "He’s just happy I haven't broken his fingers yet. Besides, we're celebrating.""Celebrating what? Another day without a bullet in the door?" I walked to the railing. The salt air stung the raw skin of my neck."We did it, Elara." He finally looked at me. His eyes were bloodshot, but they had that old, terrifying light. The Sovereign. "No Syndicate. No fathers. No lab. We’re free.""No one is ever free, Abram." I pulled the folded sonogram from my pocket. I

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"Is it sharp enough to kill a man?" Leo held the jagged shell up to the light. The sun caught the fractured edge, turning the calcium white into a predatory glint.I stopped breathing. The salt air in my lungs turned to lead. I looked at my son. He was three. Three years old, sitting in the white sand of a beach that was supposed to be our sanctuary."It’s just a shell, Leo." My voice came out as a raspy thin line. I knelt beside him, my knees crunching on the dried seaweed and grit. "Put it down. We need to go back to the house. Papa is waiting.""Papa is sleeping." Leo didn't look at me. He ran his thumb along the edge of the shell. A thin, red line appeared on his skin. He didn't flinch. He didn't pull away. He watched the blood bead up, dark and heavy, before it dripped into the sand. "He’s been sleeping since the loud noises started.""Leo—""He has a hole in his head, Mama. Like the one I made in the moth." He turned the shell over in his small, steady hands. "Does the blood mea

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