Chapter 14 - The Breach at Timberline
The world turned red.
Ethan burst out of the subterranean vault, taking the stone steps three at a time. He slammed through the heavy security doors of St. Jude Vaults, ignoring the shouts of the aging clerk, and threw himself into the driver’s seat of his SUV. He gunned the engine, the tires screaming against wet asphalt as he tore into traffic, heading north toward the safehouse at Timberline Ridge.
With one hand on the wheel, Ethan mounted his phone onto the dash mount and synced the remote closed-circuit feed from the safehouse.
The screen split into four quadrants.
Quadrant One: The perimeter gate. The heavy iron bars were twisted off their hinges, crushed inward as if rammed by a heavy truck.
Quadrant Two: The front yard. Two of the private security marshals Ethan had hired lay motionless on the manicured lawn, zip-tied and bleeding from the head.
Quadrant Three: The panic room hallway. A man in tactical black gear was using a thermal torch on the hydraulic hinges of the reinforced steel door.
Quadrant Four: The interior of the panic room. The third marshal was kneeling behind an upturned oak desk, gun drawn, his face streaked with sweat as little Lily sat huddled beneath his trench coat, crying silently while clutching her silver heart locket with both tiny hands.
"Hold on, Lily! Daddy's coming!" Ethan roared, slamming the accelerator to the floorboard. The speedometer needle swung past ninety, clipping through traffic lights, weaving violently between sedans and commercial trucks.
His phone connected to the vehicle’s hands-free audio system, ringing Julian Cross directly.
The line connected on the second ring. A calm, refined voice chuckled through the speakers. "You always were predictable, Ethan. Clara had the intellect, but you... you were always pure, unthinking muscle."
"Julian!" Ethan snarled, his vocal cords tearing with fury. "If you touch one hair on her head, I swear to God I will skin you alive in your own boardroom!"
"Touch her? Why would I harm my own flesh and blood?" Julian’s voice purred with arrogant amusement. "Lily is my daughter, Ethan. Clara discovered the fertility fraud three years ago. She found out that when you and she went for IVF, Evelyn and I swapped the embryos. Clara was carrying *my* heir, financed by *your* family fortune."
Ethan’s stomach heaved with nausea. "You sick bastard..."
"Clara was going to expose the whole thing," Julian continued, completely devoid of empathy. "She was going to take Vance Technologies away from me, divorce you, and expose Evelyn. So Evelyn took care of Clara. A few drops of digitalis every week in her herbal tea. Clean. Invisible."
"And the balcony?" Ethan shouted, tears of burning rage stinging his eyes. "Evelyn pushed a two-year-old baby off a second-story balcony into a swimming pool! She tried to drown your own daughter!"
Julian paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was ice cold. "Evelyn got greedy. She panicked when Lily started speaking Clara’s name. The brat was supposed to die so Evelyn and I could inherit the entire Vance estate through survivorship trusts. But you survived, Ethan. You jumped. You ruined the schedule."
"I’m going to kill you, Julian."
"You can try," Julian said calmly. "The torch just cut through the secondary bolt on the panic room door. My men are stepping inside now. Say goodbye to your daughter, Ethan."
The line went dead.
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Ethan crested the hill on Timberline Road. Up ahead, smoke was billowing from the safehouse driveway. A black tactical van was already backing out of the crushed gate.
***
