Chapter 7 - The Hunted HunterBy the next morning, the world had completely inverted. The ambulance had successfully reached Fort Belvoir's military medical enclave—a sovereign federal facility where local county sheriffs and corporate lawyers had no jurisdiction without a federal warrant. Claire was safely tucked away in a high-security isolation room, an IV line slowly purging the remaining Vancetine from her liver.
But the retaliation from the Vance empire was immediate and devastating.
Daniel sat in the military hospital's break room, staring at a television monitor mounted on the wall. A local news broadcast was playing, featuring a live press conference held by Arthur Vance on the steps of the state capital.
"We are currently offering a fifty-thousand-dollar reward for any information leading to the safe return of Claire Vance," Arthur announced to a cluster of microphones. "A rogue medical resident, Dr. Daniel Thorne, has used his position to physically abduct my nephew’s vulnerable, mentally unstable wife from her treatment bed. We believe he is attempting to extort the family for medical research data. A felony warrant for kidnapping has been issued."
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"They're destroying you, Doc," Staff Sergeant Miller said, walking into the room with two paper cups of black coffee. His face was grim, his own uniform damp from the night's run. "The civilian medical board just suspended your license pending a federal investigation. If we don't bring something massive to the table within the next forty-eight hours, the military police will have no choice but to hand you over to the state authorities."
Daniel didn't look away from the television, where a photograph of his own face was now being displayed beneath the word WANTED. "Let them print whatever they want," he said, his voice entirely devoid of fear. "A reputation is just wood. It can burn. But the medical data we pulled from her blood is concrete. We just need the missing piece—we need to prove Julian has done this before."
