Chapter 25 - The Empty HouseI burst through the back gate of our suburban home, my lab coat torn, my face streaked with soot and sweat. The morning sun was high in the sky, casting a deceptive serenity over the quiet neighborhood.
"Sofia! Mateo! Lucía!" I screamed, throwing open the back screen door and rushing into the kitchen.
The house was dead silent.
"Sofia!" I yelled again, sprinting through the living room and checking the hallway.
The kitchen counter was clean. Breakfast dishes were neatly stacked in the drying rack. But on the center of the wooden dining table sat a single, pristine white envelope with my name written across the front in neat, familiar handwriting.
My stomach plummeted into an abyss.
I snatched the envelope up, tore it open, and unfolded the heavy cardstock inside:
“Dear Doctor,
It is remarkably easy to bypass a suburban security system when you know the emergency override codes. Your children are currently enjoying a quiet morning ride in a private vehicle.
If you want to see Sofia, Mateo, and Lucía alive again, bring the raw genetic sequencing data you downloaded from Terminal 04 to the abandoned railway depot at Mile Marker 42 by sundown. Come alone. No police. No federal agents.
Tick-tock, Doctor. — The New Directorate”
I let out a ragged cry of pure rage and despair, crushing the letter in my fist. They had them. The syndicate had taken my children. The very kids I had sworn my life to protect had been snatched right out from under my nose while I was chasing ghosts in the hospital basement.
I pulled out my phone, dialing the emergency override number for the federal task force assigned to the Vance case.
"This is Dr. Daniel Rivera," I barked the second the line connected. "My home has been breached, and my children have been abducted by Vance loyalists. I need an immediate tactical deployment at Mile Marker 42."
"Dr. Rivera, calm down," a calm, professional voice replied from the federal dispatch center. "We've been monitoring unusual encrypted satellite communications originating from the industrial sector all morning. A federal tactical unit is already mobilizing. Stay put; we will rendezvous with you at your location."
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"I'm not waiting," I snarled, hanging up the phone.
I grabbed my car keys from the hook by the door, sprinted out to my SUV, and slammed the accelerator to the floor, heading straight toward the desolate railway depot where my worst nightmare was waiting to unfold.
