Chapter 2 - THE UNTHINKABLE TRUTHI dropped to my knees beside the cot, my hands trembling as I gathered her fragile body into my arms. For all the combat zones I had survived, for all the horrors I had witnessed in the shadows of war, nothing could compare to the raw agony tearing through my chest at that moment.
"Grace... oh, God, Grace," I choked out, pressing my face against her hair. "Where is he? Where is your baby?"
She clutched my jacket with a desperate, bone-crushing grip, gasping for air.
"He took him, Dad," she sobbed, her words tumbling out in a frantic, broken rush. "The night you called from the safehouse... he induced me. He brought a doctor here—a disgraced surgeon he bribed. They took my baby the second he was born."
"Who?" I demanded, my voice dropping into a deadly, chilling register that had once made enemy commanders confess in seconds. "Who did this?"
"Julian," she wept. "He... he isn't who you think he is. The wealth, the company, the pedigree—it’s all a front. He’s neck-deep in illegal human trafficking and black-market organ harvesting. When I found his ledger in his home office three months ago, I tried to leave. That’s when the doors locked. That’s when this cage became my world."
Before I could answer, a loud, synthetic chime echoed through the hidden room.
May you like
On the wall opposite us, a small television screen flickered to life. Julian's smug face filled the frame, illuminated by the cold blue light of a security monitor.
"Well, well, well," Julian laughed softly through the intercom. "A touching family reunion. But General, you're locked in a titanium vault five floors underground. The air in there has about forty minutes of oxygen left. And the only way out is through a biometric lock that only I can open. Shall we play a game?"
