Chapter 26 - Mile Marker 42The abandoned railway depot at Mile Marker 42 was a sprawling relic of a bygone industrial era. Rusted iron train cars sat stalled on overgrown tracks, their weathered steel bodies peeling like old scabs under the harsh afternoon sun. Broken glass littered the concrete loading docks, and wild brush choked the spaces between the rotting wooden ties.
I killed my engine fifty yards away from the main warehouse.
The silence of the wasteland was oppressive, broken only by the dry desert wind whistling through the hollow metal skeletons of the railcars.
I stepped out of the SUV, my hand clutching the digital flash drive containing the terminal data in my jacket pocket.
"I'm here!" I shouted into the open air, my voice echoing off the corrugated metal walls of the warehouse. "I have the data! Show me my children!"
A heavy steel sliding door on the side of the warehouse groaned open, grating loudly against its rusted track.
Three figures emerged from the shadows.
At the center stood a tall, elegant woman wearing a dark wool coat, her silver-streaked hair blowing softly in the wind. Even from a distance, I recognized the piercing, predatory eyes.
Katherine Vance.
She wasn't in a prison cell. She had never even seen the inside of one. The immense wealth and political insulation of her family had engineered a quiet release months ago, hidden beneath layers of legal bureaucracy and forged medical records.
Flanking her were two armed mercenaries, each holding the arm of a terrified captive.
"Mateo! Lucía!" I cried out, taking a step forward.
The twins were bound at the wrists with heavy plastic zip-ties, their faces pale and streaked with dust, but they were alive.
"Dad!" Mateo shouted, struggling against his captor.
"Where is Sofia?!" I demanded, glaring furiously at Katherine. "You said you had all three of them!"
Katherine smiled thinly, walking slowly toward me with an air of absolute, unassailable confidence.
"Sofia is a very resourceful young woman, Daniel," Katherine said smoothly, stopping ten feet away. "She tried to fight our retrieval team back at the house. She managed to slip away into the old drainage culverts before our men could secure her. But don't worry—the perimeter is sealed. She won't get far."
My blood boiled. My daughter was out there alone in the industrial wasteland, hunted by mercenaries.
May you like
"You monsters," I whispered, stepping closer. "You've tortured this family for a decade. What more do you want?"
"What we've always wanted, Daniel," Katherine replied, her voice hardening into ice. "The biological key. Your paternal genetic sequence holds the cellular regeneration enzyme that will allow our syndicate to monopolize synthetic organ manufacturing globally. You are sitting on a trillion-dollar biological goldmine. Hand over the drive, and I will let the twins walk away right now."
