Chapter 17 - The Uninvited GuestThe peace was shattered on a crisp Friday evening by the crunch of gravel outside my front entrance.
It wasn't a federal convoy. It wasn't the Bratva.
I stood by the second-floor balcony, watching a lone, battered sedan pull up to the front steps. The driver's door opened, and a man stepped out into the amber glow of the porch lights.
He wasn't wearing a tailored suit. He wore a faded flannel shirt, worn denim jeans, and a baseball cap pulled low over his forehead. But even from twenty feet away, I recognized the posture, the profile, and the haunting familiarity in his eyes.
Thomas Vance.
My heart hammered against my ribs. I turned, taking the grand staircase two steps at a time, throwing open the heavy steel front door before my guards could even draw their weapons.
Thomas stood on the porch, rain dripping from the brim of his cap, his face pale and etched with exhaustion.
"Thomas...?" I demanded, stepping out onto the stone landing. "What are you doing here? Where are Maria and Sofia? Did Viktor’s people find you?"
Thomas didn't answer immediately. He looked at me, his chest heaving, his hands trembling as he gripped a heavy duffel bag by his side.
"They didn't find us, Daniel," Thomas whispered, his voice cracking with a devastation so raw it made my blood run cold. "Maria... Maria is gone."
The world around me stopped spinning. The rain, the wind, the distant hum of the city—everything vanished.
"What do you mean, gone?" I demanded, my hands gripping Thomas’s shoulders with a force that could have crushed bone. "Where is she?"
"A hit squad," Thomas choked out, tears finally breaking over his weathered cheeks. "Not Viktor’s men—remnants of the Moscow board that Gennady warned you about. They tracked our digital footprint through a local bank error in Vermont. I managed to get Sofia out through the basement window, but Maria... Maria stayed behind to buy us time."
A cold, blinding fury—darker and more absolute than anything I had felt in my entire life—ignited deep within my chest.
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"Where is Sofia now?" I asked, my voice dropping into a lethal, terrifying whisper.
"Safe," Thomas said, pointing to the backseat of his battered sedan. "Hidden under a blanket in the floorboards. I drove straight here because... because you're the only man in this world I trust with my daughter's life."
