Chapter 6
Chaos erupted.
Vanessa ran for the door, but Marcus was faster. He tackled her to the ground, the gun skittering across the hardwood floor.
I dropped to my knees beside my father.
“Dad! Stay with me.”
His face was pale, his breathing shallow. The bullet had gone through his shoulder. It was painful, but not fatal.
“Is she…?” he gasped.
“She’s not going anywhere,” I said.
Uncle Thomas was already on the phone with the police and an ambulance.
Vanessa struggled against Marcus, screaming curses.
“You think you’ve won?” she shrieked. “You have no idea what I’ve built! My brother and I have people everywhere! They’ll find you! They’ll kill all of you!”
But her threats sounded hollow now.
The mask was off. Everyone could see what she really was.
The police arrived ten minutes later. They cuffed Vanessa and read her her rights. As they led her past my father, she spat at him.
“You weak, pathetic man,” she hissed. “You were never man enough for me. Never man enough for anyone.”
My father just watched her go, his eyes empty.
The ambulance took him to the hospital.
I sat in the waiting room with Uncle Thomas and Marcus, my mind racing.
Vanessa was in custody. But her brother was in custody too. And she had mentioned “people.” Other connections. Other accomplices.
I needed to make sure my mother was safe.
I called the house.
No answer.
My stomach dropped.
Vanessa had been with us the whole time. But what if she had someone else watching my mother? Someone who would finish what she started?
“I have to go home,” I said, standing up.
“Ryan, wait,” Marcus said. “The police are on their way to the house. Let them handle it.”
“I can’t wait,” I said. “She’s alone there. If something happened to her…”
I ran out of the hospital and drove like a maniac.
When I pulled up to the house, the front door was slightly ajar.
I drew my service pistol and moved inside, clearing each room methodically.
The kitchen was empty. The living room was empty.
I ran to my mother’s bedroom.
The door was open.
The room was a mess. The bed was overturned. Drawers were pulled out. Clothes scattered everywhere.
And my mother was gone.
I felt the world tilt.
No.
Not after everything.
I searched the rest of the house, calling her name.
Nothing.
Then I saw it.
A piece of paper taped to the bathroom mirror.
In messy handwriting:
“You took my sister. Now I take your mother. Bring the evidence to the old mill at midnight. Come alone. Or she dies.”
James.
But James was in custody.
Unless…
I called Marcus.
“James isn’t in custody,” he said, his voice tight. “He escaped. Two men with guns broke him out of the transport van on the way to the station. Ryan, they’re professionals. This is bigger than we thought.”
Bigger.
Vanessa and James hadn’t been working alone. They had connections. Real connections. People who would break a prisoner out of police custody.
“I know where they are,” I said. “The old mill on the west side of town. Midnight.”
“Ryan, don’t go alone. We’ll call the FBI. We’ll set up a perimeter—”
“Midnight, Marcus,” I said, hanging up.
I knew the old mill. My grandfather used to take me fishing there when I was a kid. It was abandoned now. Isolated. Perfect for an ambush.
But I didn’t have a choice.
They had my mother.
I checked my weapon. Grabbed extra ammunition. And I made a quick stop at the cabin to pick up something else.
Something my grandfather had left me.
An old hunting rifle.
And a promise.
“Ryan,” he had said, putting the rifle in my hands when I turned eighteen. “This family has always protected its own. No matter what.”
I arrived at the mill at 11:30.
The moon was bright, casting long shadows across the overgrown grass. The mill loomed in the darkness, its windows broken, its wooden walls rotting.
I moved through the trees, staying low, using the skills the Army had taught me.
I could hear voices inside.
James.
And another man.
And my mother, whimpering.
I circled around to the back of the mill and found a broken window. I climbed inside silently.
The main floor was empty.
The voices were coming from the basement.
I crept down the stairs, my gun raised.
In the dim light, I could see them.
My mother was tied to a chair, her face bruised, a gag in her mouth.
James stood in front of her, holding a knife.
And next to him was a man I recognized from the news.
Viktor Sorenson.
A known arms dealer. A man the FBI had been chasing for years.
So that was it.
Vanessa and James had been working for Sorenson the whole time. He had funded their operations. Provided the connections. The muscle.
And now he was here to clean up the mess.
“Where is it?” Sorenson asked James, his voice thick with an accent.
“He’ll come,” James said, pacing nervously. “He loves his mommy. He’ll bring everything.”
Sorenson shook his head.
“Your sister was supposed to handle this cleanly. Now we have police. We have soldiers. We have attention I don’t want.”
He turned to my mother.
“Tell me where the boy keeps the evidence,” he said, pulling a gun. “Or I will make you watch as I cut your son into pieces when he arrives.”
My mother just stared at him, tears streaming down her face.
I had heard enough.
I stepped out of the shadows.
“Looking for me?”
James spun around, the knife raised.
Sorenson raised his gun.
But I was faster.
Two shots.
One to Sorenson’s gun hand.
One to James’s knife hand.
Both weapons clattered to the floor.
“Ryan!” my mother screamed through the gag.
I kept my gun trained on them.
“Stay down.”
Sorenson clutched his bleeding hand, his eyes filled with rage.
“You have no idea who you’re dealing with, boy.”
“I know exactly who I’m dealing with,” I said. “A coward who uses women and broken men to do his dirty work.”
More men started coming down the stairs. Sorenson’s people.
I was outnumbered.
Four to one.
But then I heard the sound I had been waiting for.
Sirens.
Dozens of them.
Marcus had called the FBI after all.
The men froze.
Sorenson tried to run for the stairs, but I tackled him.
The FBI burst into the basement moments later, guns raised, shouting orders.
They pulled me off Sorenson and cuffed him. They freed my mother. They arrested James and the rest of Sorenson’s men.
My mother ran to me, throwing her arms around me, sobbing into my chest.
“I knew you would come,” she whispered.
I held her tight.
“I promised I would protect you.”
Marcus appeared at the top of the stairs, grinning.
“Told you not to go alone,” he said.
May you like
I smiled back.
“Told you I didn’t need to.”
