695 lan 2 "Fifteen minutes before I was supposed to leave San Diego for a business trip to Denver, my six-year-old daughter wrapped both arms around my waist and begged me not to go. My suitcase was already beside the front door, the driver was waiting outside, and my phone kept buzzing with messages about the meeting I was expected to lead the next morning. But the look on Nora’s face made every one of those things disappear. Then she whispered, “Daddy, Vanessa puts something in my juice when you travel, and afterward my hands shake and my brain won’t slow down.”

The force of the shockwave threw me backward against the dining room table, my ears ringing with a high-pitched, deafening scream. Smoke instantly filled the room, acrid and blinding.

Through the haze, I saw three figures dressed in black tactical gear bursting through the broken glass doors from the ocean deck!

"GET THE DRIVE!" a harsh voice yelled over the ringing in my ears.

Caleb reacted with lightning speed. Even while disoriented from the flashbang, he drew his sidearm from his waistband, dropping to one knee and firing two quick shots toward the lead intruder! The bullets caught the attacker in the chest, sending him tumbling back over the smashed deck railing!

"DAVID! GET UNDER COVER!" Caleb roared, pulling me by my belt behind the thick mahogany dining table just as a hail of submachine gun fire chewed through the antique wood above our heads!

"Who the hell are they?!" I screamed, clutching Vanessa's journal tight against my chest while Caleb’s specialist returned fire from behind the kitchen island.

"Colin Mercer’s syndicate!" Caleb yelled back, reloading his pistol with a fresh magazine. "They knew we were searching his properties! They had a tracker on Colin’s cloud server! If the ledger hits the DA's desk, it brings down their entire network in California!"

A second tactical mercenary lunged into the dining room, reaching for the silver hard drive sitting on the floor where I had dropped it during the explosion!

"NO!" I yelled, abandoning all thought of personal safety. I drove my shoulder directly into the man’s knees, tackling him onto the shattered glass floor!

We tumbled across the room, the mercenary hitting me hard in the ribs with his elbow. Pain flared through my chest, but I held onto his vest with manic strength, screaming in fury as I punched him full in the face!

The mercenary groaned, his grip slipping from his weapon. Caleb rushed over, kicking the man's gun across the floor and slamming the butt of his pistol against the back of the attacker’s helmet, knocking him unconscious instantly.

Outside on the deck, tires squealed in the gravel driveway as a black SUV roared away down the coastal highway—the remaining attackers fleeing as the wail of San Diego police sirens echoed in the distance.

I lay on the floor, gasping for air, clutching my cracked ribs, my hands bloodied from the shattered glass. Beside me lay the silver hard drive, the steel box, and Vanessa’s handwritten diary.

Caleb knelt beside me, breathing heavily, checking my pulse. "You alright, David?"