Chapter 6 - Pier 54
The thermal charges blew the bathroom door inward with a concussive blast of white-hot fire and shrapnel.
Smoke billowed into the wrecked office as my father’s mercenaries rushed through the breach, rifles raised, expecting to find me cowering in the corner.
Instead, the room was empty.
“He’s gone! He escaped through the ventilation shaft!” one of the mercenaries shouted into his comms.
My father stepped through the wreckage, his face twisting into an ugly mask of fury. “Find them! Hunt them down across the entire building! If they reach the street, kill them all!”
He had no idea that while his men were tearing the upper floors apart, I was already three levels underground, sliding into the driver’s seat of my custom ballistic SUV. Liam and Lucas were safely locked in the armored back row, munching on protein bars I kept in the glove compartment, their eyes wide as I slammed the vehicle into gear and punched the garage door override.
The heavy steel security gate shuddered and rolled upward, revealing the freezing, rain-swept Manhattan night.
I didn't head toward a police station. I didn't wait for backup. I tracked the GPS signal hidden inside the micro-perforated note from Emma’s locket—a tracker I had secretly installed in all custom family jewelry years ago.
Pier 54. Hudson River.
Thirty minutes later, the rain was coming down in sheets, turning the city lights into blurred smears of neon red and yellow. I killed the headlights a block away from the abandoned shipping pier, cutting the engine and letting the heavy SUV coast silently into the shadows of a decaying brick warehouse.
The warehouse doors were slightly ajar. Faint, flickering yellow light spilled out onto the wet asphalt, accompanied by the low hum of a diesel generator.
I turned back to the twins in the backseat.
“Stay here,” I instructed, my voice absolute. “Lock the doors from the inside. Do not open this door for anyone except me. Do you understand?”
“Be careful, Daddy,” Liam whispered.
I kissed the top of both their heads, stepped out into the freezing rain, and raised my carbine.
The air smelled of rusted iron, brine, and death. I crept along the exterior wall, finding a shattered window near the loading dock, and slipped silently inside the cavernous warehouse.
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Rows of rotting shipping containers loomed like giant monoliths in the gloom. In the center of the vast, open floor sat a single wooden chair beneath a harsh overhead halogen bulb.
And tied to that chair, pale, battered, but breathing, was Emma.
