Chapter 24 - Blood on the Steel Grate
The wind screamed across the bridge, tearing through the open doors of the ruined ambulance. Daniel held the Glock leveled at Julian’s forehead, his hand perfectly steady despite the storm raging inside his chest.
"You won't pull that trigger, Julian," Daniel said, his voice dropping into a deadly, quiet cadence.
"Try me," Julian coughed, his hand trembling around the flare gun's grip. "You have no idea what Clara took from us. Our father built an empire—the Hawthorne Dynasty. When he died, he willed every offshore asset, every shadow corporation, to a biometric trust that only unlocks with the genetic signatures of his direct grandchildren. Clara fled because she wanted to starve us out. She took our future!"
"She took her children away from a family of sociopaths," Daniel countered, his eyes calculating the distance between them. Five feet. Less than a second.
"You think she cares about you?" Julian laughed, a pathetic, bloody gurgle. "Clara is alive, Daniel! She staged the fire in your house! She paid Vanessa to terrorize you, to push you to the brink so you'd bring the kids to this coast! She's sitting in an offshore vessel three miles out, waiting to collect the trust the moment we deliver them. You were never her savior. You were her delivery boy!"
The words hit Daniel like physical blows, but he didn't flinch. He refused to let doubt paralyze him. Whether Clara was a monster or an angel didn't matter anymore.
What mattered were the two children who called him Dad.
"Maya doesn't belong to a trust," Daniel whispered. "She belongs to me."
Julian snarled, his finger tightening on the trigger of the flare gun.
Daniel didn't fire his pistol—the muzzle blast in the enclosed, oxygen-rich ambulance could ignite the leaking medical tanks. Instead, Daniel lunged forward, grabbing Julian's wrist and slamming it upward against the ambulance ceiling.
The flare gun discharged with a blinding whoosh, shooting a fiery red projectile into the stormy sky through the broken roof vent.
With his free hand, Daniel drove his fist into Julian’s fractured jaw. The impact dropped the Hawthorne heir instantly. Julian’s head slammed against the steel floor, and he went limp, out cold.
Daniel didn't waste a breath. He unbuckled Maya’s car seat, pulling the drowsy infant against his chest. She whimpered softly, recognizing her father’s scent, and buried her little face in his neck.
Daniel reached down, rifling through Julian’s soaked coat. He pulled out a black, military-grade satellite phone. On the screen, a timer was counting down: *00:14:22*. Underneath the timer was an encrypted incoming message from a contact named **C.H.**:
*Target package secured? The extraction chopper lands at the lighthouse at midnight. Bring Daniel’s body as proof.*
Daniel’s blood turned to liquid nitrogen. *C.H. Clara Hawthorne.*
May you like
His wife.
***
