Chapter 91 The bleeding truth
Chapter 91 The bleeding truth
The drive to Pretoria felt like a descent into a different kind of purgatory. The highway blurred into a grey ribbon of asphalt, the rain lashing against the windshield like a warning. Victor gripped the steering wheel so hard his hands cramped, his mind a chaotic loop of Sergeant Morgan’s voice and the image of Vane—the man who had been his shadow, his brother, his only true confidant—broken in a heap of metal.
Pretoria Academic Hospital was a sprawling, clinical fortress. Victor didn't wait for an orderly. He swung himself out of the car, his single cane clicking rhythmically against the wet pavement as he navigated the emergency entrance.
"Vane Maphosa," Victor rasped at the trauma desk, his voice shaking. "Where is he?"
He was led back into the Intensive Care Unit, a place of constant beeps and the smell of ozone and antiseptic. Behind a thin glass partition, Vane lay submerged in a sea of tubes and wires. His face was a map of deep lacerations and purple bruising; a heavy cast held his leg in traction, and a ventilator hissed, breathing for him.
A nurse approached, handing Victor a small, clear plastic bag containing Vane’s personal effects. "We found these in his jacket, Mr. Blackwood. The police have already processed the scene."
Victor took the bag. Inside was Vane’s shattered phone, a handful of coins, and a crumpled, blood-stained scrap of paper.
Victor pulled the paper out. His heart skipped a beat. Scrawled in Vane’s frantic handwriting was an address in the industrial outskirts of City Deep. Beneath the address was a code—a registration number for a warehouse facility. Victor’s blood ran cold.
Blackwood Logistics Site 4.
It was a decommissioned facility his father had supposedly sold years ago. Victor stood there in a trance of shock, the paper trembling in his hand. Why was Vane going there? What had he found that was worth a high-speed chase and a near-fatal collision?
He sank into the plastic chair beside Vane’s bed, the weight of the silence in the room pressing down on him. He watched the steady rise and fall of Vane’s chest, feeling a crushing sense of isolation. His son was gone. His best friend was a ghost. And the trail was leading directly back to his own name.
He stood up, intending to find the detective on duty to demand an update, but a sharp, wet cough stopped him in his tracks.
"Vic... Vic... Vic..."
The voice was a jagged rasp, barely audible over the hum of the ventilator. Victor spun around, his cane clattering to the floor as he rushed to the bedside. Vane’s eyes were open—just slits of bloodshot hazel—fixed on Victor with a terrifying intensity.
"Vane! Vane, I’m here. Relax, man," Victor whispered, his voice thick with emotion. He reached for a cup of water with a straw on the tray, holding it to Vane’s parched lips. "What happened? What were you doing out there?"
Vane took a shallow, painful sip, his chest heaving with the effort. "The chil... d. Vic... the child..."
"Vane, relax. What child? Sage? We know, Vane. He was taken from the hospital. The police are looking—"
"No!" Vane’s hand, bruised and swollen, reached out and gripped Victor’s forearm with surprising strength. "Your son... is not safe. And Elena... she’s... she’s in the middle of it."
Victor felt a chill sweep through his marrow. "How do you know that, Vane? What’s going on? Who took him?"
"Your pare... nts," Vane wheezed, his voice dropping to a low, sick whisper that carried the weight of a death sentence. "They know. The silver sedan... the man from the funeral... James. He was one of theirs. And Goblet... the investigator I hired... he’s a lie. He works for them. They were trying to kill me, Victor. They’re hiding something from the past... they stole the baby."
Victor pulled back, his head spinning. The room seemed to tilt. His parents? The people who had just embraced Elena? The people who had sat in the hospital pews and prayed for the "Blackwood heir"? It was too monstrous to believe, yet as he looked at Vane’s broken body, the pieces of the last month finally clicked into a grotesque, perfect picture. The "crisis" his mother mentioned. The insistence on the Blackwood name. The way they had hovered over the nursery.
"They have him," Vane coughed, a spray of blood speckling his lip. "They took him to keep the secret. You have to... get them out."
Victor didn't hesitate. The time for grieving was over; the time for war had begun. He knew he couldn't leave Vane here. If his parents were capable of stealing a newborn, they were capable of finishing what they started with Vane in a hospital bed.
He stormed toward the nursing station, his face a mask of cold, aristocratic fury that brooked no argument. He found the head trauma nurse, a stern woman who looked like she had seen it all.
"I am moving this patient," Victor commanded, slamming his black titanium credit card onto the counter. "I want a private ambulance, a portable ventilator, and you. You are coming with us. I will triple your annual salary for a week of private service. Do not call the administrators. Do not call the police. We are leaving now."
The nurse looked at the card, then at the desperate, dangerous fire in Victor’s eyes. She nodded slowly. "I’ll get the transport kit."
Ten minutes later, the back of a black, unmarked medical van was being loaded. Vane was stabilized on a gurney, the head nurse monitoring his vitals with a portable screen. Victor stood by the doors, checking his phone.
He didn't call the Blackwood security team. He didn't use his private car. He knew they would be tracking his GPS, his calls, perhaps even the heartbeat of his vehicle. Instead, he pulled up a specialized, high-end ride-sharing app, requesting a nondescript vehicle to meet them at a side exit blocks away.
As the unmarked van pulled out of the hospital gates, Victor looked at the blood-stained note in his hand. Site 4.
He looked at Vane, who had drifted back into a pained unconsciousness. Victor’s world had been a lie, built on the bones of Elena’s family and the blood of his best friend. His parents wanted a Blackwood heir, but they were about to realize that he was his father’s son in one way they hadn't expected.
He knew how to burn an empire to the ground.
"Hold on, Vane," Victor whispered as the van sped into the darkening Pretoria night. "We’re going to get him back. And then, I’m going to make them wish they’d never heard our name."
The hunt had shifted. Victor was no longer the victim; he was the hunter. And as he checked the magazine of the handgun Vane always kept hidden in the medical kit, Victor realized that the "sunshine" he had promised Elena was going to have to wait until he had finished walking through the fire.