Her Stepmother Chased Her Down the Hallway With a Wooden Candlestick—Until the 1-Year-Old Girl Fell Down the Stairs! Her Father Rushed In to Save Her, but What She Whispered About the Locked Room Left Him Frozen in Horror! / Chapter 39 / 40

Chapter 39 - The Sins of Clara Vance

Daniel didn't hesitate. He smashed the bridge emergency door release.

The heavy steel hatch slammed open into the screaming storm. Torrential Atlantic rain lashed across Daniel’s face as he burst onto the open catwalk, sprinting along the slick railing toward the stern deck where the contractors were securing Noah and Maya.

"Drop him!" Daniel roared through the gale, drawing the secondary sidearm from his hip holster.

Clara emerged from the bridge behind him, firing her backup weapon. Bullets sparked off the steel catwalk beside Daniel’s boots.

On the helipad deck, the lead contractor drew his sidearm, preparing to execute Daniel on sight.

"Noah! NOW!" Daniel screamed.

Noah twisted with all his young might, tearing his arm free from the blanket. With a feral cry of rage, he struck the emergency flare against the contractor's ceramic body armor plate.

*PHHHHOOOOOSHHH!*

A three-thousand-degree plume of blinding magnesium fire erupted directly into the face of the lead mercenary. The contractor shrieked in agony, dropping Noah as he flailed wildly, clutching his melting tactical visor.

The second operator raised his rifle to kill Noah, but Daniel took the shot.

Sprinting down the metal steps, Daniel leveled his pistol with both hands, firing twice through the heavy sheets of rain. The rounds struck the second contractor square in the center of his chest rig, the kinetic impact hurling him backward off the stern into the boiling, churning ocean below.

Noah scooped Maya into his arms and scrambled across the wet deck toward Daniel. "Dad!"

Daniel caught Noah and Maya, pulling them behind the armored bulkhead of the ship's winch housing. He tore the tape from Noah’s mouth.

"You did it, son. You did it," Daniel whispered, kissing the top of Noah’s soaked head.

"She's coming, Dad," Noah breathed, pointing back toward the bridge.

Clara strode down the exterior companionway, completely unbothered by the hurricane winds or the falling rain. Her long hair was plastered across her pale, beautiful, terrifying face. In her hands, she carried a heavy Milkor multi-shot grenade launcher retrieved from the ship's bridge armory.

She stopped fifteen paces away on the open deck, leveling the monstrous cylindrical weapon directly at Daniel and the children.

"I gave you every chance to live a quiet life, Daniel," Clara said, her voice amplified through her tactical headset, cold and detached. "You could have walked away with a million dollars and forgotten this family ever existed. But you chose to play the hero."

"They're not assets, Clara," Daniel said, standing upright, stepping fully out from behind the bulkhead, shielding both children behind his broad body. "They are your sister's children. They are human beings."