Chapter 5 - BLOOD AND FROSTBefore the blinding light faded, I was through the shattered frame.
My suppressed pistols roared. Two mercenaries fell instantly, bullet holes blossoming on their foreheads. A third guard swung his assault rifle toward me, but I slid across the frost-covered floor, coming up beneath his guard, driving my knife upward into his armpit, severing the brachial artery.
Blood sprayed across the white tiles, instantly freezing in the subterranean chill.
Vance was already moving, dragging Maya by her coat collar toward a heavy blast door at the back of the chamber.
"Evelyn!" Vance screamed over the ringing in his ears, firing wildly behind him. "You pathetic, broken dog! You should have stayed buried!"
"Give me my daughter!" I roared, firing at his shoulder.
The heavy Kevlar lining of his trench coat absorbed the hit, but the force stumbled him forward. He let go of Maya.
I lunged forward, grabbing Maya by her arm and pulling her behind the heavy steel pillar for cover as automatic gunfire chewed up the concrete around us.
The little girl looked up at me, her brown eyes wide with terror, but she didn't scream.
"Are you... are you the angel my foster mom prayed for?" she whimpered, her voice raspy from the cold.
My heart shattered into a thousand pieces. I wrapped my tactical vest around her small, shivering frame. "No, baby," I whispered, cupping her freezing cheeks with my gloved hands. "I'm your mother. And nobody is ever going to hurt you again."
Suddenly, the side door slammed open. Cross walked in, backed by four heavily armed operatives. But instead of aiming at Vance's retreating mercenaries, Cross's men formed a perimeter, pointing their weapons directly at me.
"Step away from the child, Evelyn," Cross said, his voice cold and devoid of the smooth charm he displayed at the diner.
I stood up slowly, placing myself between Cross's guns and my daughter. "We had a deal, Cross. You wanted Vance. I wanted Maya."
"Deals change when the terms are updated," Cross sneered. He pointed his cane at a steel briefcase sitting on the central lab table. "Vance wasn't holding the ledger on a server. It's stored in her blood. The kid is the drive. Her modified DNA holds the encryption sequences for every dark-money account in the Western hemisphere."
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My blood boiled. "She's a seven-year-old child!"
"She's worth three billion dollars," Cross corrected, a dark, manic grin spreading across his face. "And you, Evelyn... you just did all the heavy lifting for me."
