Chapter 3 - The Red Hook Breaching
The rain had transformed into a heavy, suffocating fog by the time my convoy of blacked-out SUVs pulled into the industrial wasteland of the Red Hook shipping docks. The Atlantic Ocean churned violently against the concrete piers, the sound of crashing waves swallowing the hum of our engines.
I sat in the backseat of the lead vehicle, trading my tailored executive suit jacket for a reinforced tactical vest. Marcus handed me a compact carbon-frame sidearm.
"Jason, you shouldn't be on the front line," Marcus warned, checking the digital thermal feed of the abandoned warehouse ahead of us. "Sterling's men are professionals. If anything happens to you, the twins have no one."
"That's exactly why I'm going in," I muttered, slamming a fresh magazine into the pistol. "I left Emma once because I was a coward wrapped in a luxury suit. I am not staying in the car this time."
Marcus sighed, adjusting his night-vision goggles. "Thermal shows four heat signatures inside the main office floor on the second tier. One is bound to a chair—that’s likely Miss Reed. The other three are roaming guards. We have a window of three minutes before they check in with Sterling’s central comms."
"Go," I ordered.
The extraction team moved like shadows through the storm. The warehouse side door was bypassed with a silent hydraulic cutter. We stepped into the cavernous, rusting interior, the air smelling of salt, oil, and wet concrete.
We ascended the iron catwalks with absolute silence. Through the cracked glass window of the upper office, I saw her.
Emma.
She was tied to a heavy wooden chair beneath a single, flickering halogen bulb. Her face was bruised, her lip cut, but her head was held high, her dark eyes glaring defiantly at the two men standing over her. A blood-soaked bandage was wrapped tightly around her side where she had been grazed during the escape from her apartment.
"I told you," Emma rasped, her voice fierce despite her physical exhaustion. "I don't care if you kill me. I’m not giving you the decryption key. Jason will find you. You have no idea what he does to people who touch his family."
One of the guards laughed, raising a heavy hand to strike her. "Your billionaire boyfriend doesn't even know you exist, lady. He's at a board meeting right now buying a train station."
Before his hand could fall, I breached the office door with a violent kick.
The glass shattered inward. Marcus’s team fired three synchronized, suppressed shots. The guards collapsed to the floorboards before they could even draw their weapons, their radios sputtering with static.
I lunged forward, dropping to my knees in front of Emma, my hands trembling as I pulled a tactical knife to slice through the heavy ropes binding her wrists.
"Emma," I breathed, my voice cracking as the tough CEO facade completely crumbled. "Emma, I’m here. I’ve got you."
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She looked at me through her blurred vision, her chest heaving as the ropes fell away. Instead of crying, she instantly grabbed the lapels of my tactical vest, pulling me close. "Jason... the boys... did they make it to you? Are they safe?"
"They’re safe, Emma," I whispered, wrapping my arms securely around her shaking shoulders, holding her against my chest as if I could shield her from the last five years of my absence. "They’re at my office. They had pancakes. They're waiting for us."
