CHAPTER 30 DECLAN #2
Vale's voice rose. "Transfer holder command to Reeve removal. Confirm old route. Confirm old route now."
"Declan," Gabriel said. "Answer him."
I smiled, and it pulled at the split in my lip. "Old route refused."
The sensor burned hotter.
"Red witness severance," Cormac said. "Now."
Nora stepped beside me and pressed Thomas's ring to the sensor under my hand. Marian's voice came through the comm, ragged but fierce.
"Mother rejects claimant. Daughter rejects claimant. Guardian rejects claimant."
Nora's voice joined hers. "Thomas Brooks's ring rejects Patrick Vale's claim over Liam Brooks and every child named here."
My hand felt like it had gone into fire. I leaned into it.
"Reeve blood rejects removal," I said. "Living protection stands."
The screen flashed white.
CLAIMANT CHANNEL SEVERED
PATRICK VALE HOLDER FIELD VOID
STONE HEIR PROXY WATCH VOID
LIAM brOOKS NAME RESTORED
The speaker screamed once, a burst of feedback and Vale's rage tangled together. Then the ceiling went silent.
At Saint Brigid, Maeve spoke into the line with perfect calm. "His hand is broken. For accuracy, he did that to himself resisting Gabriel."
Gabriel said, "Cormac."
"Recorded," Cormac answered. "Claimant confession, attempted transfer to unborn Stone heir, Reeve severance, maternal rejection, guardian rejection. All copied. All redundant."
"Good."
The word carried an ending inside it.
My knees tried to fold. Nora caught me badly, because she had no strength to spare and gave it anyway. A Stone medic reached for my arm. I let him. Pride had no place left to stand between my hand and infection.
"Children first," Nora said.
The medic looked at Gabriel on the screen. Gabriel did not make him ask.
"Children first," he ordered.
The extraction began in the hush after the machine lost its teeth.
Stone medics moved with empty hands until Grace allowed one near Maisie.
She made them say the baby's name before they touched the crib.
They did. They said Maisie Nolan, then Mara Ellis, then Owen Price, then Tessa Ward, then Liam Brooks.
Each name went into the room like a small light being carried out.
Albright gave medication instructions with her hands cuffed in front of her. Nobody thanked her. Nobody shot her. That was as much mercy as she had earned tonight.
Liam stirred when the medic lifted him from Albright's lap. His eyes opened halfway, dark and unfocused, and his small hand reached at the air. Nora moved before I could stop her. She caught his fingers with her wrapped hand and went still as his grip closed weakly around her thumb.
"Hi," she whispered. "I'm Nora."
The comm rustled.
"Tell him," Marian breathed.
Nora swallowed hard. "Your mom is waiting for you. Isabella too. She's your sister. I'm your sister. You have a whole mess of us. Sorry in advance."
Liam blinked once. His lips moved around a sound too small to be a word. It broke Nora anyway. Her shoulders shook, and this time she did not cover her mouth.
I stood behind her with my bandaged palm open at her back, close without pushing. The room gave her that grief. Even Grace looked away.
When the medic carried Liam toward the door, Nora turned into me. Her forehead hit my chest. I wrapped one arm around her shoulders and held her there while the last crib rolled out of the painted room.
"We got them," she said.
"You got them named."
"We did."
We. It went through my ribs and stayed.
Cormac cleared his throat over the line, softer than usual. "East River node is going dark. I have a clean extraction log, sealed proof, medication chain, and guardian transfer to Stone medical protection pending family review."
"Family review starts now," Isabella said. Her voice shook, but it did not break. "Every child has a bed, a doctor, a name, and a guard. Liam comes to my mother first. Then we decide the rest with the people those children still have."
Gabriel's voice followed hers. "Done."
Maeve added, "Saint Brigid is secure. Vale is contained. Bell, Senn, Colby, and Albright are all alive for statements. This will ruin more than one boardroom by morning."
"Shame," I said.
Nora's laugh came out wet against my shirt. "You sound devastated."
"I will send flowers."
"You won't."
"Cormac will. He has nicer handwriting."
Her fingers tightened in my coat. The medics were looking at us now, waiting with a stretcher they had been too wise to push toward her until the children left. Nora saw it and sighed with all the offense of a woman being asked to care whether she collapsed.
"I can walk."
Siobhan's voice came through the comm like a blade wrapped in cotton. "You can be carried, or you can be sedated and carried. Choose your romance."
Nora glared at the ceiling. "I dislike doctors."
"Mutual tonight," Siobhan said. "Declan, pick her up before she negotiates herself into organ failure."
"Gladly."
Nora's glare moved to me. "Don't look pleased."
"I am a simple man. I enjoy clear orders."
"Liar."
I lifted her before she could find another argument.
My ankle flared, my palm throbbed, and my chest loosened when her arms slid around my neck.
She was warm against me despite the shock, despite the blood loss, despite the hours of machines trying to reduce her to a function.
Nora Brooks had gone into a dead system and come out with six children, one brother, and my heart in her scraped hands.
Rain met us at the alley door. It had softened to a fine silver fall over the annex, over the crushed relocation vehicles, over Stone men moving with blankets and medical bags.
One by one, the children entered the ambulances under their restored names.
Grace refused to lie down until Maisie's crib locked beside her. The medic obeyed. Smart man.
Liam's ambulance waited closest to the trauma rig, guarded on all sides. Through the open doors, I saw him sleeping under a warming blanket with his new band turned upward.
LIAM brOOKS.
Nora saw it too. Her arms tightened around my neck. "Take me to him before Saint Brigid. Just for a second."
I looked toward the medic. He started to object. I did not have to speak. He stepped aside.
At the ambulance doors, Nora reached down and touched Liam's blanket with two fingers. The boy slept through it. Her eyes filled again, softer this time, like the pain had made room for something else.
"We're bringing you home," she whispered.
"Nora," Gabriel said through the comm. His voice had lost none of its command, but there was something rough under it now. "Marian is awake. Isabella is stable. My child is safe. Bring yourself back. That is an order from your very tired brother-in-law."
Nora smiled through tears. "You don't outrank me."
"I outrank Declan."
"Barely," I said.
Gabriel's answer held the first hint of warmth I had heard all night. "Bring her home, Reeve."
The word did not trap this time. It opened.
I carried Nora into the trauma ambulance and sat with her on the stretcher because the medic gave up trying to separate us after one look. She leaned against me, head tucked under my jaw, her bandaged wrist resting across my chest.
The doors closed. Sirens started. East River fell behind us.
Nora's voice came small in the moving dark. "You said whichever home I choose."
"Yes."
"I choose where my mother and Liam are tonight. After that, I choose wherever you are, as long as the windows have locks."
My throat went tight. I pressed my mouth to her hair because words took a second too long.
"I love you," I said.
Her body went still. Then her fingers curled in my shirt with more strength than she had any right to have.
"Say it again when I'm less drugged."
"You're not drugged yet."
"Then say it again because I want it twice."
I tipped her chin up. Her eyes were tired, swollen, alive. The ambulance light painted her face in brief red washes, then white, then red again. My thumb brushed the edge of her jaw, and she came toward me first.
The kiss was careful because she was hurt, and it still knocked the last of the night out of me. Her mouth was warm, stubborn, salted with tears. She held on like she had every right to keep me, and I let the whole truth of that settle into my bones.
"I love you," I said against her mouth.
Nora breathed out, shaky and almost laughing. "Good. I love you too. You're still impossible."
"You'll have time to improve me."
"I wasn't offering."
"Shame."
She smiled then. Small, exhausted, beautiful. My hand covered hers over my chest, careful of the bandages and the ring chain beneath her fingers.
By the time Saint Brigid's lights appeared ahead, Liam was on the channel breathing steadily, Marian was whispering his name from a guarded room, Isabella was crying and arguing with Gabriel about leaving bed, and Cormac was already turning the proof into a blade for every man who had hidden behind a clinic door.
Nora turned her face into my palm and smiled against the bandage.
Outside the glass, the city kept raining. Inside, her hand stayed in mine.