Chapter 9
The seaplane was fueled and ready in five minutes.
Nobody spoke.
Nobody had to.
We all knew what was at stake.
Richard was white-knuckling the armrest.
His face a mask of pure terror and rage.
Rook was checking his weapons.
Over and over.
Like he could never be ready enough.
The flight to the island took two hours.
The longest two hours of any of our lives.
As we got closer, we saw the smoke first.
A thick black column rising into the night sky.
The house was on fire.
Fully engulfed.
Flames shooting fifty feet into the air.
The seaplane touched down hard on the water.
We didn’t even tie it up.
We jumped out.
Waded to shore.
Ran up the hill to the house.
The heat hit us a hundred yards away.
Intense.
Blistering.
The house was almost completely gone.
Just the stone walls and the skeleton of the roof remained.
“Leo!” Richard screamed. “Elena! Mia! Zero! Answer me!”
Nothing.
Only the roar of the fire.
And the crackle of burning wood.
Richard ran toward the flames.
Rook tackled him.
Held him back.
“Richard! No! You’ll kill yourself!”
“My son is in there! Let me go! Let me go!”
He fought like a wild animal.
Screaming.
Crying.
Trying to reach the fire.
Rook held him tight.
“Richard, listen to me! If Leo was in there, Victoria would have left a body! She wants you to suffer! She wants you to find him dead! The house is empty! You know it’s empty!”
Richard stopped fighting.
Went limp in Rook’s arms.
Sobbing.
Broken.
Then—from the woods behind the house—a flashlight blinked.
Three times.
Then two.
Then one.
Rook’s signal.
Mia’s signal.
“They’re alive,” Rook breathed. “Thank God. They’re alive.”
We ran into the woods.
Half a mile in, we found them.
Elena.
Mia.
Zero.
And Leo.
Huddled in a small cave Mia had found years earlier.
They were alive.
Shaken.
Scratched.
But alive.
Leo saw his father.
He ran.
Faster than he had ever run in his life.
Richard caught him.
Fell to his knees.
Held him so tight I thought he might crush him.
“I thought I lost you,” Richard sobbed. “I thought she had you. I thought—”
“I’m okay, Dad. I’m okay. Mia got us out. She knew the cave. She was ready.”
Mia walked over.
She had a cut on her forehead.
Her clothes were torn.
But she was standing.
“She came at midnight,” Mia said. “Ten men. Two helicopters. Somehow she found us. We saw the lights. I got everyone out the back. Through the escape tunnel I built last year. I knew one day we might need it. We were in the woods before they even breached the front door. She burned the house to cover her tracks. She thought we were inside. She thought she had won.”
Richard stood up.
Still holding Leo.
He looked at Mia.
“Thank you,” he said. “I don’t know how to thank you. You saved my son’s life. Again.”
Mia shrugged.
“Family takes care of family.”
Zero stepped forward.
Her laptop was clutched to her chest.
“She made a mistake,” she said. “She brought her phone. She turned it on for ten seconds to call someone. I traced it. She’s heading back to the city. To the Voss Financial tower. She’s got Adrian with her. And they’re not alone. They’ve got every mercenary they could find. Forty, maybe fifty men. They’re going to make their last stand on the top floor. They know it’s over. They’re going to try to take as many of us with them as they can.”
Richard handed Leo to Elena.
“Take him back to the plane,” he said. “Now.”
“Dad—”
“No, Leo. This ends tonight. And I don’t want you anywhere near it. You’ve done enough. More than enough. Let me finish this. For you. For our family. For all the people they hurt.”
Leo looked like he was going to argue.
Then he looked at his father’s face.
He nodded.
“Okay, Dad. But you promise? You promise this is the last time?”
“I promise. After tonight… it’s just us. No more fighting. No more running. Just you and me. Normal. Like it should have been.”
Leo hugged him one more time.
“Be careful.”
“Always.”
Elena and Mia and Zero took Leo to the plane.
They were going to fly him to a hotel in Boston.
Somewhere safe.
Somewhere far away.
The rest of us turned back toward the burning house.
“Let’s go,” Richard said. “Let’s end this.”
We flew back to the city.
Silent.
Focused.
We landed at 3:45 a.m.
Rook’s men were waiting.
Thirty of them this time.
The best he had.
All armed to the teeth.
The Voss Financial tower stood in the middle of Manhattan.
Sixty stories of glass and steel.
The top five floors were dark.
Except for one.
The penthouse office on the sixtieth.
Lights blazing.
Like they were waiting for us.
“Okay,” Rook said. “This is it. The final act. We hit hard. We hit fast. We don’t stop until Victoria and Adrian are in cuffs or in body bags. Everybody knows their jobs. Move out.”
We moved.
Thirty-five of us.
Surrounded the building.
Cut the power.
Cut the phone lines.
Jammed all communications.
No way out.
No way to call for help.
Rook and Richard and Jax and Marcus and I went up the main stairwell.
Fifteen of Rook’s best men with us.
The other twenty secured the lower floors.
Floor by floor.
Clearing them.
Taking down any resistance.
We hit the fiftieth floor.
First contact.
Three mercenaries.
They fired.
We fired back.
It was over in three seconds.
Fifty-one.
Two more.
Down.
Fifty-five.
Five of them.
A harder fight.
Two of Rook’s men went down.
But we kept going.
Up.
Up.
Up.
Fifty-eight.
The stairwell door burst open.
Ten men.
Full auto.
Bullets ripped through the stairwell.
We took cover.
Returned fire.
This was the big one.
They were good.
Trained.
But Rook’s men were better.
Five minutes.
That’s all it took.
Ten men dead.
Three of Rook’s.
The stairwell was a slaughterhouse.
Blood on the walls.
Bodies on the steps.
Richard stepped over them.
No hesitation.
No emotion.
He was beyond that now.
Fifty-nine.
One floor left.
The door to the sixtieth floor was propped open.
Light spilling out.
We could hear music.
Classical.
Loud.
Wagner.
Richard stepped through first.
The penthouse office was massive.
Floor-to-ceiling windows on all sides.
The whole city spread out below us.
In the middle of the room, sitting behind Richard’s old desk, were Victoria and Adrian.
Adrian was still bruised from Rook’s beating.
His arm was in a sling.
He looked scared.
Victoria looked calm.
Almost peaceful.
She was drinking champagne.
She smiled when she saw Richard.
“Hello, darling. I was wondering when you’d get here. I saved you a glass.”
She held up a second flute.
Richard walked toward the desk.
Rook and the others fanned out.
Covering him.
“It’s over, Victoria,” Richard said. “The building is surrounded. My men control every floor. There’s no way out. Give it up.”
Victoria laughed.
“Give it up? Richard, darling. I don’t think you understand. I have nothing left to lose. You took everything from me. My money. My reputation. My freedom. So I decided… if I’m going down… I’m taking you with me.”
She reached under the desk.
Pulled out a dead man’s switch.
A small red button.
She held it up.
“C-4,” she said. “Enough to bring the top ten floors of this building down. All I have to do is let go of this button. And boom. We all go together. You. Me. Adrian. All your men. And thousands of tons of steel and concrete raining down on the streets below. Think of the body count, Richard. Think of all the innocent people who will die because you just couldn’t let me win.”
Richard froze.
She was crazy enough to do it.
We all knew it.
“Victoria,” Richard said. His voice was calm. Reasonable. “Don’t do this. There’s still a way out. We can make a deal. You go away. Somewhere far. I’ll make sure you have money. A new identity. A new life. Just… put the button down.”
“A new life?” Victoria stood up. Still holding the button. “I don’t want a new life, Richard! I want what’s mine! I want what you stole from me! I want you to suffer the way I suffered!”
She was crying now.
Raging.
The button trembled in her hand.
One slip.
One mistake.
And we all died.
Behind her, Adrian was shaking.
“Victoria,” he whimpered. “Come on. Let’s just… let’s just surrender. It’s over. We lost.”
Victoria turned on him.
Fury in her eyes.
“Loser. Coward. I should have killed you when I had the chance.”
She raised the gun in her other hand.
Shot him in the chest.
Adrian fell back.
Dead before he hit the floor.
Victoria turned back to Richard.
“See? That’s what happens to losers, Richard. That’s what’s going to happen to you.”
She took her finger off the button.
Just for a split second.
To adjust her grip.
That was all the time Mia needed.
Nobody had seen her slip through the shadows.
Nobody had seen her climb the bookshelf along the wall.
She dropped from the ceiling.
Thirty feet.
Land right on top of Victoria.
The button went flying.
Victoria screamed.
They crashed to the floor.
Rolling.
Fighting.
Scratching.
Biting.
Two women trying to kill each other with their bare hands.
Rook dove for the button.
Caught it.
Held it down.
“Disarm it!” he yelled. “Now!”
One of his men ran over.
Pulled tools from his bag.
Went to work.
Victoria was losing the fight.
Mia was bigger.
Stronger.
Meaner.
She had Victoria pinned.
One hand around her throat.
Victoria gasped.
Choking.
Her face turning purple.
“Mia,” Richard said. “Stop. Don’t kill her. She deserves worse than a quick death. She deserves to live with what she’s done. She deserves to rot in prison for the rest of her miserable life.”
Mia hesitated.
Then she let go.
Victoria gasped for air.
Coughing.
Sobbing.
Defeated.
Mia stood up.
Kicked her in the ribs.
Hard.
Victoria curled into a ball.
“Got it!” the man with the tools yelled. “It’s disarmed! We’re good!”
Everybody exhaled.
It was over.
Really over.
Rook stood up.
Held the dead man’s switch in his hand.
Looked at Victoria.
Cowering on the floor.
“Cuff her,” he said.
Two of his men pulled her to her feet.
Zip ties around her wrists.
She didn’t fight.
She just stared at Richard.
Pure hate.
“You haven’t won,” she spat. “You’ll never win. I’ll be back. I’ll find a way. I’ll hurt you. I’ll hurt your son. I’ll—”
Richard slapped her.
Hard.
Across the face.
Her head snapped to the side.
She went silent.
“You will never go near my son again,” Richard said. His voice was ice. “You will never see the light of day outside a prison cell again. You are nothing now, Victoria. Less than nothing. You don’t get to threaten me anymore. You don’t get to threaten my family. You are done.”
He turned to Rook.
“Call the police. The real ones. The ones who aren’t on the take. Tell them to come pick her up. And tell them to bring the FBI. We’ve got a lot of evidence for them.”
Rook nodded.
Made the call.
Richard walked to the floor-to-ceiling window.
Looked out over his city.
The sun was starting to come up.
Painting the sky pink and gold.
A new day.
I walked over beside him.
“It’s really over,” I said.
He nodded.
“For now.”
“Leo is going to be okay. You know that, right? He’s tough. Just like his dad.”
Richard smiled sadly.
“He’s tougher than me. Braver too. I just hope… I just hope he can still be a kid. After all this. I hope he can forget.”
“He won’t forget,” I said. “But he’ll learn. He’ll grow. And with you there to guide him… he’s going to be fine. Better than fine. He’s going to be great.”
Richard put his arm around my shoulder.
“Thank you. For everything. For being there for him when I couldn’t.”
From behind us, we heard the sirens.
The police were coming.
The FBI.
The reporters.
The whole world was about to descend on this building.
But for a few more seconds… it was just us.
Watching the sun come up.
May you like
Breathing.
Alive.
