Chapter 13
The morning after Noah's surgery, the hospital ward was quiet, the stillness broken only by the faint beeping of machines and the rustle of nurses’ footsteps. Sunlight filtered in through the windows in dusty beams, falling across the pale sheets that covered Noah's small frame.
Jace hadn’t slept.
He’d spent the night in the narrow hospital chair, his body curled awkwardly, one hand locked around Noah’s. Every time Noah stirred, even slightly, Jace jolted awake. He didn’t want to miss a moment—not after everything.
Noah was stable. The doctor had said that a dozen times. But those words never stopped echoing in Jace’s mind with fragile hope.
Stable wasn’t safe.
Stable wasn’t forever.
He stood and stretched, bones popping from the awkward position. His body ached, but he welcomed the pain. It grounded him. Reminded him that Noah was still breathing.
Jace walked down to the hospital cafeteria and bought the cheapest coffee they had. It tasted like ash and metal, but he drank it anyway, letting the heat burn his throat.
He had nothing else.
His phone buzzed with a single message from an unknown number:
"How is he?"
No name. But he knew it was Elias.
Jace stared at the message, thumb hovering.
He didn’t reply.
He didn’t know what to say.
Elias had paid for the surgery. He had shown up, even when Jace had gone silent. That had to mean something. But it didn’t erase the fact that elias was part of the Crane Empire, the people responsible for his parents' death in 2009. Elias clearly knew something about his parents. Flashbacks of the night flooded back into Jace’s mind.
It was supposed to be just another night.
Jace Rivera was twelve. Curled up on the worn sofa with Noah nestled asleep in his lap, he watched as their father, Rafael, sorted through a stack of dusty documents at the kitchen table, lips tight, eyes dark with worry. Their mother, Marisol, hummed nervously in the kitchen, her fingers trembling around a chipped mug of tea.
They’d been whispering for days. Something about Rafael’s job—a shipment he wasn’t supposed to see, a ledger he wasn't supposed to read.
That afternoon, Rafael had come home pale and shaking. He told Marisol they needed to leave the city. Said he’d found something in the shipment at the dock—a crate that was supposed to hold construction equipment but instead carried untraceable firearms, cash, and documents stamped with the logo of Crane Global Holdings.
Victor Crane.
A name Rafael had only heard in rumours. The billionaire who moved politicians like pawns, the man who had half the NYPD in his pocket. But what Rafael held in his hands was real proof.
“I have to report this,” he told Marisol, voice low but firm. “This is bigger than anything I’ve seen. If this gets out, it could take Crane down.”
Marisol had begged him to let it go. “They’ll kill us, Rafa. We’re nobodies. Please, for the boys.”
But he wouldn’t listen.
And by nightfall, it was too late.
Jace didn’t notice anything strange at first. Just the creak of a door. Then, a shift in the air—something off, like the room had swallowed its own breath. He turned his head and saw a shadow move past the hallway.
His father stood suddenly, his chair scraping against the floor.
“Take Noah. Go to the bedroom. Lock the door,” Rafael whispered.
Jace obeyed.
From the crack in the bedroom door, he saw them—two men in black. One bald and massive, with a thick scar running from his eye to his cheek. The other, leaner, holding a silenced gun.
Rafael stood between them and Marisol.
“You don’t have to do this,” he said, hands raised.
But the bald one only smirked. “Victor says loose ends get clipped.”
Jace's blood froze.
Victor.
The man on the news. The man with the million-dollar smile. The man Rafael had said was untouchable.
The lean man raised the gun.
A muffled shot rang out.
Marisol screamed.
Another shot.
And then silence.
Jace slapped a hand over Noah’s mouth as his baby brother stirred, instinct telling him not to make a sound.
He could barely breathe. His parents were gone. He wanted to scream, to cry—but something in him stayed cold, focused.
He watched as the bald man pulled out a phone and made a call.
“It’s done,” he said.
A pause.
Then: “Yes, sir. They didn’t talk. No one else saw.”
Another pause.
“Understood.”
Then came the order that would burn itself into Jace’s soul forever:
“Make it look like an accident.”
The bald man hung up and walked to the kitchen. Jace watched through the crack as he grabbed a bottle of vodka, shattered it on the floor, and began splashing it around the apartment. The lean one pulled out a lighter.
“No,” Jace mouthed. His eyes searched for a way out, any way out.
Smoke began to fill the room as flames roared to life. The crackle of fire replaced the silence. The heat grew suffocating.
Jace wrapped Noah in a blanket, heart pounding like a drum. He remembered the fire escape outside the bedroom window—the one his dad always said was their "getaway" in case of an emergency.
This was that emergency.
He opened the window quietly. Flames licked at the walls behind him.
“Don’t look back,” he whispered to Noah.
With one arm clutching his brother, he climbed out, barefoot and terrified. Below, the city buzzed on, oblivious to the family dying inside a tiny, forgotten apartment.
When the fire trucks came, it was too late.
The bodies of Rafael and Marisol Rivera were declared victims of an accidental electrical fire.
No one mentioned the bullet wounds.
No one mentioned Victor Crane.
But Jace remembered everything.
He remembered the name. He remembered the smirk on the bald man’s face. He remembered the exact words: “Victor says loose ends get clipped.”
Noah was too young to remember. Too innocent. And Jace never told him.
Instead, he buried the truth like a secret weapon.
They bounced through foster homes. Starved. Suffered. Jace gave up school and gave up dreams just to protect Noah. All the while, a fire burned inside him hotter than the one that took their parents.
Victor Crane was untouchable. A god among men.
But gods fall too.
Jace’s phone buzzed and he mind came back to the present. He returned to Noah’s bedside and sat down, watching his chest rise and fall. The doctor came in, tall and efficient, flipping through charts like he’d already moved on to the next patient.
“He’s doing well,” he said, not unkindly. “No signs of rejection. But the next forty-eight hours are critical. If he makes it through that window without complications, we’ll be in the clear.”
Jace nodded slowly. “And after that?”
“Recovery will take time. Medication. Monitoring. But the worst is behind him.”
When the doctor left, Jace leaned back, closing his eyes for the first time in what felt like years. He tried to picture a future. A world where Noah was healthy, going to school, laughing again.
But even in his own imagination, shadows lingered.
He may not have a job anymore. His savings were gone. And Elias…
Elias was a storm he didn’t know how to weather.
A soft knock at the door snapped him out of his thoughts.
“Mister Rivera,” a nurse said. “There’s someone here to see you.”
Jace frowned. “Who?”
She shrugged. “Didn’t say. But he’s not leaving until you speak to him.”
He sighed and stood. “Okay. I’ll be right back, Noah.”
He followed the nurse out into the hallway. At the end of the corridor, near the waiting area, a man stood.
Dressed in all black, his expression unreadable, hands tucked into his coat pockets.
It was Elias.