Chapter 14 - Breach in the Nursery
The nursery door hung off its reinforced steel hinges, splintered wood littering the pristine white carpet. Inside, the room was empty. The crib was unmade, its pastel sheets tangled, and the small stuffed rabbit with the missing eye lay abandoned near the rocking chair.
Clara stood in the center of the room, her breath coming in shallow, frantic gasps, her hands trembling as she stared at the empty bed.
Lorenzo slid into the room, his Sig Sauer raised and scanning every corner. His chest heaved, his eyes wild with a feral panic he had never experienced in his life.
"Clara!" Lorenzo shouted, rushing to her side. "Where is she? Where's Lily?"
"She was here," Clara choked out, tears finally breaking free and spilling down her cheeks. "I stepped out for thirty seconds to grab her milk from the warmer, and the lights... the lights went out. Just for a second. And when they came back on..."
She pointed a shaking finger toward the open balcony doors. Heavy velvet curtains billowed violently in the cold morning draft. A thick, nylon rappel rope hung from the wrought-iron railing, dangling down toward the courtyard below.
Julian had bypassed the perimeter not by cracking the code, but by using a ghost within the house. Someone who had access to the master electrical grid.
"Valerie," Lorenzo growled, his mind instantly racing back to the head housekeeper who was currently locked in the lower holding cells. No, Valerie didn't have the technical clearance for the sub-grid.
"It was Dr. Althaus," Clara gasped, her eyes widening as the pieces fell together. "The medic who treated my poison... he checked the medical logs every day. He had access to the restricted residential elevator shafts!"
Lorenzo didn't hesitate. He spun around, his radio crackling to life as he barked orders into the comms. "Marco! Lock down every vehicular exit! Althaus has the child! If that car moves one inch past the main gates, I want it pulverized!"
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"Boss," Marco's voice crackled back over the static, strained and breathless. "Althaus didn't take her out through the gates. He went down through the drainage tunnels toward the private docks. Julian’s speedboat is waiting in the cove!"
Lorenzo didn't reply. He didn't need to. He sprinted toward the balcony, vaulted over the wrought-iron railing without a second thought, and dropped thirty feet straight down into the soft mud of the courtyard below, breaking his fall with a bone-jarring roll before surging forward into the driving rain toward the sea.
