Chapter 3 - The Sanctuary of St. Jude’s
By two o'clock in the afternoon, Donovan’s car was idling outside St. Jude’s Emergency Placement Facility on Fourth Street—a drab, gray brick building wedged between a municipal parking garage and an industrial laundry service.
Greer sat in the passenger seat, tapping away on her tablet.
"Vane is panicking," she reported without looking up. "Our legal team just intercepted an encrypted communication between his office and the Vanguard board members. They're trying to liquidate the secondary accounts before our injunction hits at nine a.m. tomorrow."
"Let them try," Donovan said, staring through the rain-streaked windshield at the heavy metal doors of the facility. "Every digital trail they leave ties them tighter to financial fraud and child endangerment. By tomorrow morning, the federal prosecutor won't just have an inquiry; he'll have a turnkey indictment."
"And the child?" Greer asked softly. "What happens to Mave while we sort this out? The state is moving her to a long-term group home in three hours unless a legal guardian steps forward with an emergency injunction."
Donovan opened the car door. The cold rain hit his face immediately, but he didn't flinch.
"She’s not going to a group home," he said.
Inside, the intake room smelled of industrial floor wax and cheap disinfectant. A tired casework clerk named Mrs. Higgins sat behind a plexiglass window, thumbing through a stack of dog-eared case files.
When Donovan walked in, trailing a quiet, massive shadow like Pax behind him, the clerk instinctively reached for the silent alarm button under her desk.
"Visiting hours for emergency wards ended at noon," Mrs. Higgins said, her voice sharp with defensive fatigue. "State ID, please, or step back behind the yellow line."
Donovan didn't pull out an ID. He pulled out a single laminated document stamped with the emergency signature of Superior Court Judge Alvarez, granting immediate temporary protective custody of Mave Callaway to Donovan Ree, pending financial and guardianship adjudication.
The clerk blinked, snatched the paper behind the glass, and scanned it twice. Her eyes widened as she read the name Donovan Ree. Everyone in the city knew who held the keys to the financial district.
"Mr. Ree... this is highly irregular," she stammered, standing up. "A corporate magnate taking in a ward of the state—the paperwork for background checks, child-proofing, home inspections—it usually takes weeks—"
"Judge Alvarez signed it twenty minutes ago," Donovan said flatly. "Bring her out."
Five minutes later, the heavy inner door clicked open.
Mave walked out. She was wearing the same dress, but someone had cleaned her up slightly. Her dark hair was tied back with a blue rubber band, and she was clutching Gerald Too—the crooked-eyed stuffed elephant—tightly against her chest.
She stopped a few feet from Donovan, her big brown eyes studying him with that terrifying, adult-like stillness.
"Are you the one who came back?" she asked.
Donovan knelt down. Right there on the scuffed linoleum floor of the state facility, surrounded by the bureaucratic wreckage of unwanted children, the most feared man in the city dropped to his knees.
"Yeah, Mave," Donovan said, his voice softer than Greer or Pax had ever heard it. "I came back."
She considered this for a long moment, tilting her head.
"Did you bring my other shoe?"
Donovan reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the white sneaker, holding it out like an offering.
Mave’s face lit up with a small, cautious smile—the first real smile he had seen on her. She took the shoe, clutched it alongside her elephant, and then, to the absolute shock of everyone in the room, she took two steps forward and wrapped her skinny arms around Donovan’s neck, burying her face in his black overcoat.
May you like
Donovan froze. His arms hovered awkwardly for a second before he gently wrapped them around her small back, holding her as if she were made of spun glass.
"Okay," Mave whispered against his shoulder. "Let's go home."
