Chapter 2 - THE ENEMY’S MASK“Get in!” Vanessa screamed over the roar of the rain and thunder. “GET IN THE CAR NOW IF YOU WANT TO LIVE!”
I pulled my gun—the concealed pistol I had kept tucked in my waistband—and aimed it straight at her forehead. “What kind of game are you playing, Vanessa? You were just standing next to Ethan five minutes ago, wearing Claire’s necklace!”
Vanessa didn't flinch. She ripped the diamond necklace off her neck and threw it at my feet into the mud.
“That necklace has a GPS tracker built into the clasp by your father!” she yelled, her eyes wild with panic. “Ethan is an idiot who thinks he’s a mastermind, but your father is a monster! I’ve been working undercover with Federal Anti-Corruption for eight months, Julian! Claire’s father was my uncle!”
Claire let out a breathless gasp, her hand tightening around my forearm. “Uncle... Uncle Marcus?”
“Yes, Claire!” Vanessa cried, tears brimming in her eyes. “I played the role of the greedy mistress so I could get close to Ethan’s internal ledgers! I had to pretend to hate you so your mother wouldn't suspect me! But your father came back early—he found out about the raid! Get in the damn car before his mercenaries clear the smoke!”
I looked at Claire. She nodded weakly, her body shivering violently from cold and labor pains.
We scrambled into the back seat of the bulletproof SUV. Vanessa slammed the door, shifted into drive, and stomped on the gas pedal just as a hail of gunfire peppered the rear reinforced glass. The bulletproof layering spider-webbed, but held.
The SUV roared down the dark mountain highway, tearing away from the burning hellscape of the family estate.
“Where are you taking us?” I demanded, leaning over the seat while holding Claire close. She was breathing in deep, shuddering gasps, holding her lower abdomen.
“Safehouse in the docklands,” Vanessa said, wiping rain and sweat from her face. “It’s off the grid. No digital signatures, no cameras. But Julian... what you told your father back there about the dead-man switch... was it real?”
I sank back into the leather seat, running a blood-stained hand through my damp hair. “No. It was a bluff to buy time. The detective on my team was compromised. When he called me, he wasn't warning me—he was confirming my location for my father.”
“Damn it!” Vanessa slammed her steering wheel. “Then we have nothing! Your father cleared out the physical files from the police vault, and without those original land deeds, Claire can’t prove the construction empire was built on stolen land!”
“We don't have nothing,” Claire spoke up suddenly.
Her voice was thin, but surprisingly firm. I looked down at her. Despite the agonizing pain racking her body, her eyes burned with a fierce, quiet fire I had never seen before.
She reached into the inner lining of her soaked coat—the ragged coat my mother had thrown at her when ordering her out—and pulled out a small, tarnished silver pocket watch.
“My father gave me this before he died,” Claire whispered. “He told me never to open the back casing unless I was completely alone and in absolute danger.”
She used her fingernail to pop open the rear compartment of the vintage watch. Nestled inside was a tiny, high-density micro-microchip.
“This contains the original digital signatures of the land transfer,” Claire said, looking up at me. “My father knew Ethan’s family was dangerous. He knew they were trying to drain his estate. He recorded every signature, every forced agreement, and the master keys to the offshore bank accounts before they killed him.”
I stared at the chip, stunned. All this time, while I was trying to protect her, while I was gathering crumbs of evidence from the outside, Claire had been holding the ultimate nuclear option.
“They didn't just break her,” I murmured, real realization setting in. “They were trying to torture her into giving up that chip without even knowing she had it.”
Suddenly, Claire gasped sharply, her body arching off the seat in excruciating pain. “JULIAN! IT’S TIME! THE BABY—IT’S COMING NOW!”
Vanessa glanced frantically in the rearview mirror. “We’re ten minutes from the docklands! Hold on, Claire!”
“She can’t wait ten minutes!” I yelled.
I looked down at Claire. The woman who had been humiliated, beaten, starved, and forced to scrub floors on her knees while carrying life inside her. I looked at her pale, beautiful face, dripping with sweat and rain.
“Look at me, Claire,” I said, placing my hands on her cheeks. “Look at my eyes. I’m right here. I’m not leaving you. Not now, not ever.”
“Julian... it hurts so much...” she sobbed, clutching my jacket.
“I know. But you are the strongest person I have ever known. You survived my family. You survived Ethan. You can do this.”
In the back of a speeding SUV, surrounded by the roaring storm, with a squad of bloodthirsty mercenaries somewhere behind us, I helped deliver my brother’s child.
And as the sharp, piercing cry of a newborn baby girl rang out inside the vehicle, filling the dark night with life, a dark realization struck me like a lightning bolt.
I looked at the baby’s tiny face, then up at Claire.
The timeline didn't add up.
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Claire had been eight months pregnant, according to Ethan’s records. But looking at the baby’s features, looking at the birthmark on her tiny left shoulder—a distinct, crescent-shaped mark identical to the one on my own neck...
The baby wasn't Ethan’s.
