Part 110

'Noel, it's Mel. I'm on a flight to London right now, and I'm booking the first train up to Edinburgh.'

Noel's hand tightened around the phone until the casing creaked. A second paragraph immediately followed, dripping with the faux-righteousness he knew all too well.

'I've seen the morning papers. I've seen what Liam said on television. A kidnapping? Extortion? Drug abuse? A cabin in the woods? I am not letting my daughter be dragged into your sordid criminal drama, Noel. I know you have her up there in Scotland with you. I am coming to get Bowie. Do not try to stop me.'

Noel stared at the screen, a bitter, dangerous laugh building in the back of his throat. Now she cared. The absolute, blinding hypocrisy of it made his blood boil. This was the exact same woman who hadn't even had the decency to get out of her car when she abandoned Bowie. She had literally left a terrified little girl on the pavement to ring his doorbell alone in the dead of night, before storming off into the darkness to flee to Ibiza and chase her next high.

At the time, she hadn't even given Noel the courtesy of the truth, she had dumped the child on him without even telling him Bowie was his daughter, leaving him completely in the dark. He had been forced to figure out his paternity on his own, stepping up to raise his little girl while Mel jetted off partying with shady promoters and lowlifes.

But Noel knew exactly what this was. Mel smelled blood in the water. She didn't give a toss about Bowie's safety; she smelled a massive, high-profile media circus. This was her golden ticket to get her face back on the front pages, and pocket a massive payday from the tabloids.

A final text landed, cementing her true intentions.

'My solicitor is meeting me with an emergency custody order. I'm giving an exclusive interview to the papers tonight about the danger you've put our daughter in. See you at your hotel or wherever the hell you're hiding in Edinburgh, babe.'

Noel's breathing went ragged, a cold, murderous fury paralyzing his chest. She was going to sell their daughter out for fifteen minutes of fame, using the very child she had discarded on a doorstep as a weapon.

He looked down at Caro, whose klammy hand was still resting helplessly in his, her body fighting the agonizing peak of a chemical withdrawal. Then he thought of Bowie, safely back at the hotel with her brothers, entirely unaware that the mother who had abandoned her in the dark was now descending on Scotland to tear her life apart.

Sara's wrath hadn't just broken Caro; it had opened the gates for every parasite in his past to come crawling out of the woodwork.

Noel pulled the door shut behind him, the latch clicking softly in the quiet corridor of the clinic. He leaned his back against the wall, closed his eyes, and took a long, deep breath. The cool air out here was a relief after the heavy, suffocating warmth of Caro's room, helping him clear his head after reading Mel's texts.

He pulled out his phone and called Liam. The line rang a few times before his brother answered, his voice sounding tired and worn out from everything that had happened that morning.

'Noel? How is she?' Liam asked.

'She's still very weak, and the next 24 hours will be the worst of her life, but she'll fight through it' Noel said quietly, keeping his voice down so it wouldn't carry back into the room. 'Liam, I need you to listen to me. Mel just texted. She saw the papers and your interview on television. She's on a flight to London right now and booking the first train up to Edinburgh. She's coming to take Bowie away again.'

The line went completely dead. For a long moment, the only sound was the faint static of the connection. When Liam finally spoke, all the energy had left his voice. He sounded completely blindsided, caught in a state of dazed shock.

'Mel..?' Liam whispered, his voice trembling. 'No. No, she can't be. She hasn't looked at that girl in how long? She left her on the pavement in the middle of the night. Why would she come back now?'

'Because of the media, Liam. She smells a payday,' Noel explained, his tone steady but firm, trying to pull his brother out of his panic.

'This is my fault,' Liam breathed, his voice cracking as the realization hit him. His breathing turned shallow over the phone. 'The television interview..I did this. I thought I was helping. I didn't think she'd use it to come after Bowie.'

'Oi, listen to me,' Noel corrected himself gently, anchoring his brother. 'We don't have time for this right now. I am stuck here at the clinic, so I need you to take care of things at the hotel and don't let Bowie out of your sight.'

'Make sure the television stays off and take their phones so they don't see the news. Just tell them it's an internet outage, and go speak to the hotel manager and the front-desk security,' Noel continued. 'Give them Mel's name and her description. Tell them she might show up with a lawyer or reporters to cause trouble in the lobby, and they need to deny her entry for trespassing before she even gets near the elevator.'

'I'm on my way downstairs right now,' Liam said, his voice finally finding some traction. 'What about you?'

Noel looked down at the floorboards, his hand tightening slightly around his phone. 'I'm going to stay here with Caro for as long as possible. But the second I can leave this room, I'm coming straight to the hotel. If Mel shows up there, I want to be the one standing between her and Bowie. Just buy me that time, Liam. Take care of my girl.'

'I will, Noel. I promise,' Liam said quietly.

Noel ended the call. He didn't move. He stood in the quiet hallway, sending a barrage of silent, furious texts to his lawyers, demanding they pull the old police logs from the night Mel abandoned Bowie on his doorstep. Block her, he typed. Use everything. She does not touch my daughter.

When he finally put the phone away, he sat back down by Caro's bed. He held her damp hand for hours, wiping the sweat from her brow, trying to be present. But he wasn't. Every shadow on the wall looked like Mel. Every sound outside the room sounded like a train pulling into Waverley Station. Every single tick of the clock shouted his daughter's name. Bowie. Bowie. Bowie.

By the time the afternoon bled into a dark, rain-soaked evening, the pressure in his chest became unbearable. He looked down at Caro. She was drifting into a more agitated sleep, she looked so profoundly fragile. Leaving her felt like a betrayal. It felt like tearing a piece of his own heart out.

But his mind flashed one last, definitive time to Bowie. He saw her small face, terrified, looking at a pack of flashing camera lenses. He couldn't let that happen. He couldn't let the ghost of his past destroy his little girl.

'I'm so sorry, babe,' Noel whispered, his voice cracking with a raw, painful ache as he gently slipped his hand away from Caro's cold knuckles. He tucked the wool blanket securely around her shoulders. 'I have to protect Bowie. I'll be back. I promise I'll be back.'

He stood up, his limbs heavy and numb with guilt. He walked out of the room, gave a few quick, sharp instructions to the guards in the corridor, and stepped out into the Scottish rain. He got into the car that rushed him toward the hotel. The guilt of leaving Caro was already eating him alive, but his mind was entirely fixed on one thing: Mel wouldn't get the chance to even touch his daughter.

The London train hissed to a halt against the platform at Waverley Station. The doors clicked open, unleashing a steady stream of commuters into the rainy Edinburgh evening. Mel stepped onto the concrete, pulling her designer coat tighter around her shoulders. Beside her walked her sharp-faced solicitor, carrying a sleek leather briefcase containing the drafted emergency custody order.

'The paperwork is as solid as it can be without a local Scottish magistrate's countersign,' he murmured as they hurried through the bustling station toward the taxi rank.

'It doesn't matter,' Mel replied, a smug, sharp smile touching her lips. 'I am her biological mother. No court in the country is going to arrest me for walking into a hotel to see my own daughter. Noel can't hide behind his security guards forever.'

Ten minutes later, Noel's car screeched to a halt in the grand, rain-slicked driveway of the hotel. The guilt of leaving Caro was still a heavy, suffocating weight in his chest, but the image of Bowie's face kept him focused. He threw the door open, stepping out into the freezing Scottish rain, his boots thudding hard against the stone pavement as he lunged toward the revolving glass doors.

But as he pushed through into the warmth of the opulent hotel lobby, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

A sharp click of heels echoed right behind him.

Noel spun around, his jaw clenching so hard a sharp pain shot into his temple. Mel was standing there. She had timed it perfectly, trailing his car right to the entrance, using his arrival to slip past the perimeter guards before they could block her.

'Hello, Noel,' Mel whispered, her eyes flashing with a cold, triumphant gleam.

'Get out,' Noel said, his voice dropping into a low, lethal register, stepping forward to block her path to the elevators. 'You don't cross this lobby, Mel. I swear to God.'

'Careful, Mr. Gallagher' her solicitor cut in, stepping forward and opening his briefcase to brandish the legal documents. 'My client is the biological mother of Bowie Gallagher. You do not have a formal, court-ordered custody agreement stripping her of her parental rights. Until a judge says otherwise, she has every legal right to see her child. If your security personnel even does as much as lay a finger on her, we will have the Edinburgh police here within five minutes charging you with harassment and unlawful restriction.'

Noel froze, his breathing going ragged as the brutal reality of the law hit him like a physical blow. He looked at the solicitor, then back at Mel's smug, mocking face. His hands curled into white-knuckled fists inside his pockets.

He had all the money, all the private security, and a house full of guards, but in this exact moment, on paper, she was the mother. He couldn't physically stop her without handing her the exact headline she wanted. He was completely cornered.

'She's upstairs, isn't she?' Mel smiled, stepping right past his shoulder, her perfume choking him as she headed straight for the elevators. 'Well, let's go see our daughter then, babe.'

Noel's thumb flew across the screen as the elevator surged upward, his breathing heavy and ragged. He didn't even look at Mel, who was calmly smoothing down her coat in the mirror.

'where is the injunction? She is in the elevator right now. Answer me.'

No response. The screen just stared back at him, cold and silent. The legal fortress he had relied on his entire life was completely out of reach. He was totally on his own.

The elevator let out a soft chime as it reached the penthouse floor. The doors slid open.

Mel didn't wait a single second. She stepped out of the lift, her heels digging into the plush carpet. She marched down the corridor with terrifying purpose, her solicitor struggling to keep up with her frantic pace. Noel lunged after her, his hand slamming into his pocket to grab his keycard, but Mel reached the double doors first. She threw her entire weight against the handle, forcing the heavy oak doors to burst open with a loud, violent crack against the wall.

The quiet warmth of the suite was instantly shattered.

Sitting on the floor by the fireplace, Bowie looked up, a playing card frozen in her small hand. Opposite her, Sonny froze too, his eyes widening in instant panic.

Liam and the boys were completely blindsided. They had been entirely confident that Noel's high-end hotel security perimeter would easily catch and block her down at the front doors. They never expected her to make it past the lobby.

'Bowie! Oh, my darling girl!' Mel cried out, her voice twisting into a loud, dramatic gasp as she bypassed Liam completely. She didn't even glance back at the threshold as she threw a mocking jibe over her shoulder at Noel, her voice dripping with venomous sarcasm. 'Mommy missed you so much.'

In a fraction of a second, the quiet room erupted. Sonny shot up from the floor like a rocket, his small frame throwing itself directly in front of his little sister to shield her. At the exact same moment, Donovan shot up from the adjacent sofa, his instincts instantly kicking in as he lunged forward, moving in perfect lockstep with his little brother to cut Mel off before her hands could even touch the child.

Liam was up too, his dazed shock instantly morphing into pure, protective adrenaline as the boys formed an immediate, fierce defensive wall in front of Bowie.

Noel slammed his hands against the doorframe, seeing his sons form that desperate, immediate wall broke something vital inside him. He didn't just step into the room; he charged forward to get to his daughter first.

But Mel was already moving with terrifying, erratic speed. Bypassing Liam she shoved her way past Sonny and Donovan.

'Bowie! Come to Mommy!' Mel shrieked, dropping to her knees on the rug and lunging straight for the little girl.

The moment Mel's hands locked onto her shoulders, Bowie went rigid. She didn't look at a stranger, she looked right into the face of the woman who had left her alone on a dark, freezing pavement all this time ago. The terrifying memory hit her like a physical blow, and instant panic took over.

'No! No! Let go of me!' Bowie screamed, her voice cracking into a frantic, desperate sob.

As Mel wrapped her arms around her, trying to force a dramatic hug and lift her small body off the floor for her solicitor to see, Bowie fought back with everything she had. She bucked wildly, twisting her torso and kicking her legs against Mel's shins. She scratched at Mel's manicured hands, sobbing hysterically as she tried to tear herself out of the suffocating grip.

'Daddy! Daddy, help me!' Bowie wailed, her eyes locked onto Noel over Mel's shoulder, her small face streaked with tears as she fought violently against her mother's touch.

'Get your hands off my daughter!' Noel roared, the last thread of his restraint snapping completely as he lunged into the fray to tear Mel away from the crying child.