Chapter 6 - THE PRE-DAWN AMBUSH
At 4:30 AM, the quiet inside the warehouse was shattered by the sharp, metallic crunch of breaking glass at the far end of the loading dock.
I was awake instantly. I had been sitting on an overturned wooden crate near the office door, a steel pipe resting across my knees, my eyes trained on the dark shadows of the main floor.
Beside me, Julian snapped awake, his face pale in the dim glow of the laptop light. "What was that?" he whispered, his voice trembling.
"Stay here," I said quietly, setting the pipe down and pulling a high-powered tactical flashlight from my belt. "Lock this office door from the inside. Do not open it for anyone except me."
"Lucas, call the police!"
"The police are forty minutes away if Arthur’s friends at the precinct delay the dispatch," I gritted out. "Lock the door, Julian."
I slipped out into the cold, cavernous space of the warehouse floor, staying close to the shadow of the brick pillars. The smell of wet asphalt and rain drifted in through a broken transom window high up near the ceiling.
Down near the rear rolling door, two flashlights were cutting through the gloom. Low, muffled voices echoed off the corrugated metal walls.
"Find the laptop," a man’s voice rasped. "Arthur said he’s got the digital audit logs on a local drive. Burn the whole office if you have to, just don't leave any paper."
"What about the kid?" another voice asked, smaller, sharper.
"If the kid's here, we take her. Arthur’s got a private plane waiting at the county airstrip. Once she’s out of the state, the jurisdiction gets messy enough for the lawyers to work."
My blood ran like liquid nitrogen through my veins. They hadn't just come to destroy evidence; they had come to kidnap my daughter before Judge Vance’s court opened at eight.
I moved silently along the row of heavy wooden crates, my boots making no sound against the sealed concrete floor. There were two of them—thick-set men wearing rain jackets and dark baseball caps, carrying crowbars and heavy utility bags. They were moving steadily toward the elevated office suite where Emily was sleeping.
I didn't call out a warning. I didn't announce my presence.
When the first man reached the bottom of the iron stairs leading up to the office, I stepped out from behind a four-foot pallet of industrial machinery and slammed my flashlight beam straight into his eyes.
The blinding ten-thousand-lumen light caught him dead-on. He yelled, dropping his crowbar as he shielded his face.
Before his partner could react, I closed the distance, shoving the heavy steel flashlight body straight into the first man’s chest. The force sent him flying backward into a stack of empty wooden pallets, bringing them crashing down in a deafening cascade of splintering wood and metal straps.
The second man pulled a short, heavy brass rod from his pocket and swung wildly at my head.
I ducked beneath the arc, feeling the rush of air against my ear, and drove my shoulder directly into his midsection. We both hit the hard concrete floor, rolling through the pooling rain water leaking from the broken window.
He was younger and heavier, but I had something he didn't: an absolute, blinding ferocity born of a father protecting his only child.
He tried to pin my arms, but I slammed my elbow upward into his chin, knocking his head back against the concrete. His grip loosened. I twisted free, grabbed the back of his tactical vest, and smashed him down into the floor until he went completely limp, his breathing coming in ragged, shallow wheezes.
Behind me, the first man was struggling to get out from beneath the broken pallets.
I picked up the crowbar he had dropped, walked over, and drove the sharp iron end directly into the concrete floor three inches from his nose.
The man froze, his eyes wide with utter terror as he stared up at me in the dim light. Water was dripping from my hair, my suit trousers were torn at the knee, and my knuckles were scraped raw, but I didn't feel a thing.
"Who gave you the location?" I asked, my voice dropping into a register that didn't sound human.
"Marcus!" the man gasped, holding his hands up in surrender. "Marcus Vance! He tracked your SUV's built-in GPS through the corporate account system! We were just hired to do a clean sweep! That's all, man! Don't kill me!"
I reached into my pocket, pulled out my phone, and clicked the voice recorder app to 'STOP.'
"Thank you," I said coldly. "That’s all the evidence Judge Vance needs to add third-degree burglary and conspiracy to kidnapping to the charge sheet."
Ten minutes later, Mark and three of my corporate security guards burst through the side entrance, guns drawn, taking control of the two men on the floor.
I walked back up the iron stairs to the office. Julian unlocked the door with shaking hands, holding an overturned heavy desk chair like a weapon. When he saw me standing there, wet, bruised, but entirely intact, he let out a long, ragged breath.
In the corner of the room, Emily was sitting up on her improvised bed, holding her knees to her chest. She wasn't crying. She was looking at me with those deep, intelligent brown eyes that belonged to her mother.
"Daddy?" she asked softly. "Did you beat the bad men?"
May you like
I walked over, knelt beside her, and pulled her into a tight, warm hug, ignoring the dirt and water on my clothes.
"Yes, baby," I whispered, holding her so tight I could feel her little heart beating against mine. "The bad men are finished. Now we just have to go show the judge."
