Chapter 288: ~ 287
Chapter 287
~Franklin~
A bone-chilling, raw shatter of sound ripped through the silence of the master suite, tearing me violently out of my sleep.
It was Octavia.
I sat bolt upright in bed, my heart instantly hammering against my ribs. The piercing scream made my entire body lock up for a fraction of a second before my protective instincts violently fired all at once.
I ripped the heavy duvet away, throwing my legs over the side of the bed, and sprinted out of the room barefoot. My lungs burned as I raced down the corridor.
"Octavia!" I roared, my voice thick with sleep and rising panic.
I burst through the nursery door, and the scene before me instantly shattered my world.
The room was completely ice-cold, the heavy glass window thrown wide open as the howling, freezing night wind whipped the white curtains wildly into the air. Octavia collapsed on the floor, her entire body shaking violently as she clutched a crumpled, empty pink fleece blanket to her chest, her face wet with a devastating torrent of tears.
My gaze ripped away from her, landing squarely on the bassinet.
The sheets were entirely empty. The small, indentation where my daughter had been sleeping just hours ago was completely vacant.
A devastating wave of primal fury and blinding panic clouded me. My breathing turned shallow, ragged, and heavy. I choked on the frozen air, my hands trembling as I stared at the empty bed. Lael. My baby girl. My tiny, helpless daughter. Gone. The panic was a living, breathing monster tearing through my throat, threatening to choke the very life out of me.
"Franklin... she’s gone... someone took her... they took our baby!" Octavia shrieked, her voice cracking into broken sob as she buried her face into the fabric of the blanket.
Before I could even gather her into my arms, the frantic sound of footsteps echoed from the hallway. Grandpa Frederick, Olga, and three heavily armed members of our security rushed into the nursery in a state of absolute, breathless panic.
"What happened? What is going on?" Grandpa Frederick demanded, his eyes darted from the wide-open window to the empty bassinet. His face turned an asymmetric shade of pale. "Oh, God... the child."
"Check the footage!" I said. I grabbed the head of security by the lapels of his uniform. "Get to the security room right now and pull up the nursery perimeter CCTV! I want eyes on whoever touched my daughter!"
The security guard nodded frantically, his fingers flying across his tactical tablet as he ran back toward the main monitor hub. Olga dropped to her knees beside Octavia, weeping openly as she wrapped her arms around my trembling wife, trying to offer whatever small comfort she could.
A minute later, the head of security returned, his face completely devoid of color, his jaw trembling as he looked at me. "Mr. Flemington... the CCTV feeds for the entire northern wing... they’re entirely blank. The system was completely wiped. The servers were wiped clean ten minutes ago from an encrypted internal loop."
The words hit me like a physical blow. A brutal, calculating silence settled into my chest, instantly morphing my panic into a terrifying, concentrated rage.
It wasn’t a random burglary. It was a targeted, meticulous execution. And my mind instantly locked onto the only person who possessed the insider knowledge, the access, and the motive to dismantle my life. Flynn.
Convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that Flynn’s terrifying panic attack in the conservatory last night and his sudden car crash this afternoon were nothing more than an elaborate, calculated distraction to lower our guards.
I refused to wait for a formal forensic investigation. The bastard had played us. He had faked his vulnerability, destroyed my car, and sent us racing to the hospital just to clear the estate so his accomplices could strike the nursery.
I dropped to my knees beside Octavia, my large hands framing her tear-stained face. She looked up at me through a thick blur of agony, her shoulders shaking violently. I leaned forward, pressing a firm, lingering, and desperate kiss against her forehead, the scent of her fear filling my senses.
"Listen to me, Octavia," I whispered, my voice thick with a lethal promise, my dark eyes locking entirely onto hers. "I am going to find our baby. I swear to you on my life, I will bring Lael home. Stay here with Grandpa. Olga, lock these doors."
"Franklin, please—" she sobbed, but I was already standing up.
I grabbed my SUV car keys from the dresser, tore out of the nursery, and stormed down the grand staircase, completely blinded by a roaring, suffocating rage. Someone had taken my daughter, and I was going to burn the world down to get her back.
The drive through the city streets was a chaotic blur of screeching tires and broken traffic laws. I tore through the downtown grid, arriving at the hospital’s emergency trauma wing. I slammed my heavy shoulder against the automatic security doors, shattering the quiet sanctuary of the medical floor as I marched directly down the hall.
Nurses shouted after me, and security guards tried to intercept my path, but the sheer, murderous aura radiating from my frame made them instantly step back. I slammed the privacy curtain of Flynn’s room, ready to rip the medical tubes from his skin and squeeze the truth out of his throat—
Only to find the hospital bed completely empty.
He fled. The thought turned my blood into absolute fire. He knew what he had done, and he was trying to run.
Panting heavily, my knuckles cracking as I balled my hands into massive fists, I whirled around to hunt him down.. I gripped the edge of the plastic curtain, my vision shifting into a deep, volatile crimson as I stepped back out into the bright, buzzing fluorescent hallway.
But as I turned the corner toward the exit bay, a shadow shifted twenty feet down the corridor.
It was Flynn.
He was limping heavily against the wall, his hospital gown rumpled and stained with fresh blood where his IV lines had been violently ripped from his forearm. His left arm was still locked in its cast, and his face was twisted in an expression of raw, agonizing pain.
He was entirely ignoring his bleeding forehead laceration and the flashing red warning lights on the nurses’ station behind him, desperately trying to shuffle his broken body back toward his room from the vending machines.
He hadn’t fled the hospital. He was right here.
Before Flynn could even lift his head completely, before a single word of explanation or greeting could form on his pale lips, the last remaining thread of my sanity snapped.
I lunged forward, covering the distance between us in a single, explosive stride. My massive right fist collided brutally with Flynn’s jaw. The impact was a sickening, heavy crack that echoed down the entire length of the sterile corridor. The force of the blow sent my cousin crashing hard against the linoleum wall, his head bouncing off the drywall before his knees buckled completely.
Before he could slide to the floor, I reached out with both hands, grabbing the rough collar of his hospital gown and hoisting him completely off his feet. I pinned him violently against the wall, my knuckles pressing hard against his throat, cutting off his air as his bloodshot, terrified eyes forced themselves open to look into my face.
My chest was heaving, a dark, murderous growl vibrating deep in my throat. I leaned in until my face was mere inches from his, my deep voice dropping into a terrifying, lethal roar that shattered the remaining silence of the corridor:
"Where the hell is my daughter?!"