The Divorced Military Queen Awakens (by Sadie Baxter) novel Chapter 728

Chapter 728 Refusing to Stand Aside 
The nearest Shadow Guard lunged forward, bracing Julius’s sagging weight, then lifted anxious eyes to Quinn. “Madam, right now-” 
Quinn steadied her voice. “Take Master Whitethorn back to the manor. I will stay and join the search.” 
One of Julius’s bodyguards stepped in, worry tightening his jaw. “But Madam, if Master Whitethorn wakes and finds you in the field, if he grows angry, none of us can bear the fallout.” 
The memory of Julius’s last conscious moment flickered–his hand clenched around hers, voice hoarse, begging her to stay behind. 
Her chin lifted. “Then I will bear it.” The words left no space for argument. 
Fabian rushed forward, eyes blazing. “Madam! Master Whitethorn already lost you once. If anything happens again, he will break. We will mobilize every hand to find Miss Aurora and bring her home alive!” 
Quinn held his gaze. “Fabian, Dawn is Julius’s and my child. I must be in the thick of this. If I stay behind and she suffers, I’ll regret it all my life.” She glanced down at Julius’s pale face. 
Even unconscious, his brows stayed knotted, as though some private storm still raged behind closed lids. 
She straightened. “If he wakes before I return, let him come to me,” she said. “And tell him this -whatever happens, I will crawl back to his side if I must.” 
Fabian flinched, a quick shiver running through his shoulders. 
The pledge tasted of smoke and metal–the same words she had hurled over roaring engines the day she forced Julius off that doomed plane. 
Now she offered it again, undented, unbroken. 
The vow welded her resolve until it rang like steel inside her ribs. 
Fabian said no more. At a nod, the guards lifted Julius and slipped him toward the waiting car. 
Quinn watched Julius disappear, then turned her gaze to the guests now hemmed in by questioning officers. 
The time for grief ended; now she would hunt the hand behind this. 
The gutted delivery truck hurtled down the road, suspension groaning with every uneven patch of asphalt. 
Behind the bolted cargo doors, darkness pressed in, thick and airless. 
Verity crouched in that blackness, arms locked around unconscious Dawn, feeling every jolt of the road through his knees. 
So that was the ring’s true meaning, then? 
Whoever wore it became a marked target for kidnapping. 
Had Mother told Dawn to wear it because she planned this abduction herself? 
Were these men acting on orders from Mother and… the man he was supposed to call Father? 
Shame surged up so hard it nearly drowned him. 
Why were his own parents the villains? 
Why would they choose to hurt Dawn? 
Was it only because Dawn was the true Miss Whitethorn? 
He had heard Mother whisper more than once that the family would still need a stand–in if Dawn simply stopped existing; then she and he could walk back into the Whitethorn household, needed again like before. 
His mother never guessed how the word stand–in scraped across his skin like sandpaper. Adults whispered it, classmates spat it, as though he had been born without a name of his own. Dawn never did. Whenever her eyes touched him she seemed to see only the boy sitting there, no borrowed shadow hanging off his shoulders. 
Rotten damp air clung to the metal walls of the van, thick enough to taste. The floor lurched with every unseen pothole; time stretched until minutes had no edges. He pressed Dawn against his chest, small arms aching, heartbeat drumming a promise he was too young to keep. “I’ll protect you,” he told the dark, even though the dark did not answer. 
At last the tires rolled to silence. The door groaned open and moonlight spilled in, silver and cold. The men framed in the doorway found two children curled together–one limp, the other locked around her like a hinge. On his round face a snarl trembled, awkward and earnest, baby teeth pretending to be fangs. 
“Out!” the first man barked, reaching for the unconscious girl. “No!” Verity’s voice cracked as he clutched tighter. His fingernails scraped her satin sleeve, but larger hands peeled him away with effortless patience, like someone stripping leaves from a twig. She was gone before his lungs had found their next breath. 
“Settle down, princess,” the man warned, giving Dawn’s limp form a shake. “Titles won’t save you; we have other ways to make kids behave.” 
“What are you going to do to her?” Verity shouted. The man’s laugh rasped like gravel. “Worry about yourself, brave boy. Most kids beg for their own skins, not someone else’s.” 
A second kidnapper leaned in, studying Dawn as though she were livestock on auction. “Skinny thing, isn’t she? Calluses everywhere. Looks more like a scullery brat than some rich miss.” 
He inspected her hands again and spat. “Silk dress or not, those are working hands.” “Maybe she’s just the help playing dress–up.”