Chapter 8 - The VariableBefore Vance’s thumb could depress the detonator button, a sharp, metallic clatter echoed from the top of the spiral staircase.

Both Elena and Vance froze.

I didn't hesitate. I threw myself sideways behind a solid concrete pillar as a deafening blast shattered the glass panels around me.

Bang!

Glass showered across the floor in a blinding cascade of diamond-like shards. But the shot hadn't come from my gun, and it hadn't come from Elena’s shotgun.

At the top of the metal staircase, standing framed in the dim light of the nursery doorway, was a tiny figure in a yellow lace dress.

Sophie.

She was holding an oversized, heavy-duty industrial bolt-cutter—one of the tools Marco had left in the hallway toolbox. Dragging the heavy iron handles behind her, the four-year-old had managed to wedge the massive tool directly into the automatic gear mechanism of the security gate, jamming the heavy steel door half-open.

“Sophie!” Elena shrieked, dropping her composure entirely. “Get away from there! Go back!”

Sophie didn't listen. She stared down at her mother with eyes that looked impossibly old.

“Mom,” Sophie whispered, her voice echoing clearly through the cistern. “Mr. Moretti’s babies aren't the only ones who are scared.”

Elena raised her shotgun toward the stairs in a blind panic. “Sophie, move!”

“Drop the gun, Elena,” I commanded, stepping out from behind the concrete pillar, my pistol locked dead-center on her chest.

At the exact same second, Vance snarled, lunging forward to press the detonator on his console. “If I die, we all—!”

He never finished the sentence.

From the shadows behind the server racks, a heavy tactical flash-bang grenade rolled across the floor, stopping right at Vance’s feet.

FLASH! BOOM!

A blinding white light and a concussive shockwave ripped through the cistern. Vance screamed, dropping his tablet as he stumbled backward, clutching his ears and crashing hard into a wall of glass panels.

May you like

“Wire cutters? A bit cliché, aren’t they?” Richard’s voice echoed smooth...

Daniel’s face drained of color. He looked from my father’s quiet, dignif...

The bright, sterile lights of the New York-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodi...

From the ventilation shaft above—the very shaft Marco had cleared earlier—a heavy tactical rope dropped down, followed swiftly by Marco himself, sliding into the cistern with a submachine gun raised and ready.

“Secured the upper floor, boss!” Marco roared over the ringing in our ears. “The perimeter team just breached the front gates!”