Chapter 7
Elena ran before I could stop her.
“Daniel!”
Daniel lifted his head.
For one second, he looked dead.
Then his eyes focused.
“Elena?”
His voice was broken.
Thin.
But it was him.
Caleb sobbed.
“Dad!”
Daniel strained against the restraints holding him to a metal chair.
His face was gaunt.
Beard grown in uneven patches.
One eye bruised yellow.
An IV line taped to his arm.
Elena slammed both hands against the glass.
Daniel stared at her like a starving man seeing sunlight.
“I told you not to come,” he whispered.
She laughed through tears.
“You left a note telling me to find a crime boss. Don’t act surprised.”
Even half-dead, Daniel almost smiled.
Then the speaker crackled.
“Touching.”
Victor Kane stepped from the shadows beyond the glass.
He was older than I remembered.
Thinner.
His hair white.
His skin almost translucent.
But his eyes were the same.
Cold.
Amused.
Hungry.
“Elena Mercer,” he said. “You are lovelier than Daniel’s silence suggested.”
Daniel jerked against the restraints.
“Don’t talk to her.”
Kane smiled.
“There he is.”
I lifted the flash drive.
“The files.”
Kane looked at me.
“Slide it through the tray.”
A metal pass-through sat in the wall.
I held the drive above it.
“Caleb first.”
Kane shook his head.
“You still negotiate like you have leverage.”
“I have the only copy.”
He smiled.
“No, Adrian. Daniel was too careful for that. You have the only copy I haven’t found.”
My stomach tightened.
Kane knew.
Maybe bluffing.
Maybe not.
Marlow stayed behind me, silent.
Elena kept her eyes on Caleb.
The boy was pale, terrified, but alert.
His medication bottle sat on a metal cart just out of reach.
Kane noticed me noticing.
“He has had one dose. I am not a monster.”
“You built an empire on sick children,” I said.
“I built an empire on desperation. Sickness was simply efficient.”
Elena turned on him.
“You used children.”
Kane looked at her like she was furniture.
“I used parents. Children were the door.”
Daniel said, “Let them go. You have me.”
Kane laughed.
“I had you eleven months. You were a terrible guest.”
Elena looked at Daniel.
Eleven months.
Every missing day passed across her face.
Kane continued, “Daniel would not tell me where the vault code went. Pain failed. Drugs failed. Isolation failed.”
Caleb cried harder.
“Dad.”
Daniel’s eyes filled.
“I’m sorry, buddy.”
“No,” Caleb sobbed. “I tried being brave.”
“You were.”
Elena pressed her forehead to the glass.
“You both were.”
Kane sighed.
“Enough.”
He lifted a small remote.
The IV pump beside Daniel beeped.
Daniel’s body stiffened.
Elena screamed.
“What are you doing?”
“Encouraging focus.”
I moved to the pass-through.
“Stop it.”
Kane watched me.
“The drive.”
I placed it in the tray.
Marlow whispered, “Adrian.”
I ignored him.
Kane retrieved the drive.
The pump stopped.
Daniel slumped, gasping.
Elena shook with rage.
“You gave him what he wanted.”
I looked at Kane.
“Did I?”
Kane’s eyes narrowed.
He inserted the drive into a laptop.
The screen flickered.
A folder opened.
Then another.
Then the entire screen filled with one sentence.
Hello, Victor.
Daniel laughed weakly.
Kane froze.
The laptop began uploading.
Not downloading.
Uploading.
Every file on that drive transmitted to three federal servers, two newsrooms, and one private archive controlled by my brother Luca.
Daniel looked at me through the glass.
“Still using decoy drives?”
I almost smiled.
“Still insulting my methods?”
Kane ripped the drive out.
Too late.
Alarms began sounding upstairs.
Not his alarms.
Ours.
Luca’s men had entered.
Marlow’s hidden transmitter had gone live the second we crossed into the basement.
State tactical was three minutes out.
Kane’s face changed.
For the first time, Victor Kane looked old.
Then he looked at Caleb.
And old became dangerous.
“If I burn, Daniel burns.”
He grabbed Caleb’s chair and pulled him close.
Elena screamed.
I raised my gun.
Glass separated us.
Kane pressed a blade to Caleb’s throat.
“Nobody moves.”
Daniel strained against his restraints with a sound that was barely human.
Kane backed toward a side door, dragging Caleb.
Caleb’s eyes locked on mine.
He mouthed something.
My pill.
His medicine bottle.
On the cart.
The same cart Kane was moving past.
I understood too late.
Caleb kicked the cart with all his strength.
The bottle flew.
Kane looked down.
Only half a second.
Daniel threw his chair sideways, ripping the IV line free and crashing into Kane’s legs.
Caleb fell.
Elena grabbed a fire extinguisher from the wall and smashed the glass.
Once.
Twice.
The safety glass cracked but did not break.
Marlow fired through the weakened corner.
The glass spiderwebbed.
I drove my shoulder into it.
Pain exploded through me.
The pane gave.
Elena climbed through before the shards stopped falling.
She reached Caleb first.
I reached Kane.
He slashed at me.
The blade cut my forearm.
I struck him across the face and drove him into the wall.
Daniel, bleeding from the arm, grabbed Kane’s wrist and held it down.
“Elena,” he gasped. “Take Caleb.”
She already had.
Kane looked at me with hatred.
“You sentimental fool.”
I leaned close.
“No.”
Behind me, sirens screamed.
“I finally learned what not being one costs.”
Marlow cuffed him.
Luca’s men flooded the corridor.
Daniel collapsed.
Elena screamed his name.
Caleb crawled to him, shaking.
“Dad?”
Daniel opened his eyes.
His hand found Caleb’s hair.
May you like
“I’m here.”
For the first time in eleven months, he was telling the truth.
