Chapter 7 - Blood in the River
"Please!" Thorne shrieked, crawling toward Nora’s feet, his surgical gown stained with dirt and grease from the floor. "Nora, I was forced into it! Vane would have killed me too! I saved what I could! I kept your father’s research notes! I can restore your sight again! I have the new tissue samples in Boston! I can make you see!"
Nora didn't move. She stood tall in the cold, wet air of the foundry, listening to the desperate pleas of the man who had destroyed her family.
"You can't restore anything, Marcus," she said softly. "Because you never understood what my father was building. He wasn't building a business. He was trying to give his daughter a chance to see the sky."
She turned her face toward Julian.
"Julian," she said quietly.
Julian looked down at the trembling surgeon at his feet. "Say the word, Nora. And he stays in this river tonight."
Thorne looked between them, tears of terror streaming down his face as he realized his life was hanging on a single word from the blind woman he had betrayed three years ago.
Nora stood silent for three long seconds. The only sound in the ruined foundry was the distant lap of the Seekonk River against the wooden pilings outside and the soft, steady breathing of the dog at her side.
"Death is too easy for him, Julian," Nora said finally, her voice cold and absolute. "Hand him to the Federal District Attorney along with the ledger. Let him spend the rest of his life in a maximum-security cell staring at four blank concrete walls. Let him see what darkness really feels like."
Julian stared at her for a moment, then a slow, dark respect settled over his features.
"Dean," Julian commanded. "Zip-tie him. Call the US Marshal’s office from an untraceable line. Give them the location of the foundry and the complete unencrypted ledger."
"Yes, boss," Dean replied, stepping forward with heavy plastic restraints.
At that moment, a bloody hand reached out from behind a pile of iron pipes near the loading dock.
Marcus Vane, dying from three gunshot wounds to his chest, raised his heavy snub-nosed revolver with his last fading strength, aiming the barrel directly at the back of Nora’s head.
"If I'm going to hell..." Vane rasped through a mouth full of blood, "...you're coming with me, sweetie."
Julian saw the movement in his left eye—the eye that reacted instantly to the flash of steel in the dim light.
Without thinking, without calculating the cost or the consequences, Julian Voss threw his body between the dying mobster and Nora Ashford.
BANG.
The heavy lead bullet tore through the air, catching Julian squarely in the left side of his chest, just beneath his collarbone.
Julian reeled backward, his heavy wool coat soaking up dark crimson blood as he fell against the edge of the operating table.
Ghost launched himself across the room in a single, terrifying bound, breaking Marcus Vane’s neck before the man could pull the trigger a second time.
"Julian!" Nora screamed—a pure, unscripted sound of horror that tore through her throat as she dropped to her knees on the cold floor, her hands searching frantically through the dark until they found his bleeding chest.
Julian lay back against the metal table, his breathing shallow, his face going pale as the cold rain drifted through the shattered roof above them.
He reached up with his trembling left hand, his fingers bloody, and placed his palm over hers.
"I saw you..." Julian whispered, a faint, crooked smile touching his lips as his vision began to blur into dark shadows at the edges. "For three years... I saw the world... but tonight... I finally saw what was worth protecting..."
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"Don't you dare die, Julian Voss!" Nora cried, pressing her hands firmly against his wound to stop the bleeding, her tears falling onto his pale face. "Do you hear me?! You still owe me!"
Julian closed his eyes, his breathing slowing as the dark finally reached out to claim him.
