CHAPTER 4 — Blood Money
CHAPTER 4 — Blood Money
The parking garage became chaos.
Bullets ricocheted off concrete pillars.
Car alarms screamed.
Smoke swallowed the exits.
I clutched Ethan against my chest and followed Charles through rows of abandoned vehicles while his security team exchanged gunfire with shadows moving between the columns.
"This way!"
One guard opened a steel maintenance door.
Before we reached it—
CRACK.
The guard dropped instantly.
A single sniper round.
No warning.
No second chance.
Charles pulled me behind an armored SUV just as another bullet shattered the windshield above our heads.
"They knew we'd come here."
His voice was ice-cold.
"We have a leak."
A black-clad attacker emerged through the smoke.
Then another.
Then five more.
Professional.
Body armor.
Military formation.
Not street criminals.
Mercenaries.
One of them shouted,
"Walker!"
His accent was impossible to place.
"Hand over the accountant."
The accountant.
Me.
Charles looked at me in disbelief.
"They're not here for my money."
He tightened his grip on the pistol.
"They're here because of what you found."
The firefight intensified.
Charles's chief of security, Marcus, finally reached us.
"Sir!"
"We've lost two teams."
"Exit?"
"Compromised."
"Helicopter?"
"Pilot's dead."
Charles closed his eyes for half a second.
Then he made a decision.
"Split up."
Marcus stared at him.
"Absolutely not."
"If they catch Emily, everything Evelyn died for disappears."
Marcus nodded reluctantly.
He handed Charles a small encrypted flash drive.
"This is everything."
Charles shoved it into my jacket pocket.
"If anything happens to me..."
"No."
He grabbed my shoulders.
"Listen."
"If I fall today, you give that drive to Senator Amelia Ross."
I shook my head.
"I don't even know her."
"You don't have to."
He looked into my eyes.
"She was my wife's best friend."
An explosion ripped through the garage ceiling.
Concrete rained down.
The lights went out again.
Someone screamed.
Then silence.
Out of the darkness came a familiar voice.
"Charles..."
Richard Hale stepped into the emergency lighting with both hands raised.
"I came to help."
Marcus immediately pointed his weapon.
"Don't move."
Richard looked horrified.
"My God... what happened here?"
He seemed genuinely shocked.
Too genuine.
Charles studied him carefully.
"You got here awfully fast."
"I received an emergency alert."
Richard slowly reached into his jacket.
Marcus shouted,
"Hands where I can see them!"
Richard froze.
"It's my phone."
Charles nodded once.
"Slowly."
Richard removed it.
The screen was still glowing.
One incoming message.
For just a fraction of a second, I saw the sender's name reflected in the cracked glass.
DIRECTOR C. BENNETT
Clara Bennett.
The woman Charles trusted most.
The woman who had prepared Ethan's nursery.
The woman who knew exactly where we would be.
Richard quickly locked the screen.
Too late.
I had already seen it.
Before I could say a word, another explosion tore through the far wall.
Armed men poured into the garage.
Their leader raised his rifle and shouted one chilling command.
"Kill Walker."
Then he pointed directly at me.
"...and bring the woman and the baby back alive."
At that moment, I realized the horrifying truth.
This conspiracy had never been about stolen money alone.
Someone wanted Ethan alive.
May you like
And whatever secret my son carried...
...was worth killing an empire to protect.
