Chapter 7 - The Woman in the Mirror
The loading dock beneath the Lake Shore compound was a slaughterhouse of smoke and shattered concrete.
The emergency backup generators sputtered, casting long, sickly yellow shadows against the walls. The smell of burning rubber and magnesium hung thick in the cold air. Two black SUVs belonging to Vance’s assault team were smashed against the concrete pillars, their engines smoking from Daniel’s brutal entry.
"Stay behind me," Adrian whispered, moving with lethal efficiency toward the service stairs.
Gunfire rattled from three floors above—sharp, rhythmic bursts from Marissa’s defensive team holding the bunker entrance.
We moved up the concrete stairwell, our boots silent against the blood-slicked steps. My heart was in my throat, but my hands were completely steady around the grip of the Sig Sauer. Motherhood had made me protective; the past forty-eight hours had made me dangerous.
On the landing of the second subterranean level, a figure stepped out from the shadows.
It wasn't a mercenary in tactical gear.
It was Vivian.
She was no longer wearing the glamorous crimson dress from the gala. She was dressed in dark utility pants and a leather jacket, her face smudged with soot, a heavy automatic pistol held loosely in her right hand.
"You're too late, Adrian," Vivian said, her voice shaking slightly, laced with a hysteria that teetered on the edge of madness.
Adrian raised his Glock instantly, the red laser sight painting a bright, unblinking dot right between Vivian’s eyes. "Where are they, Vivian? Tell me, or I will put a round through your skull before you can pull that trigger."
Vivian laughed, but it was a broken, weeping sound. She lowered her weapon, letting it clatter to the concrete floor. She raised her hands, her fingers trembling violently.
"Shoot me, then!" she cried out, tears cutting clean tracks through the grime on her cheeks. "Do it, Adrian! It’s better than what Cassian Vance is going to do to me when he realizes the bunker didn't crack!"
Adrian didn't lower his gun by a single millimeter. "Explain."
"Vance... Vance has my sister, Adrian!" Vivian sobbed, sinking to her knees on the cold concrete. "He’s had her in a private clinic in Zurich for four years! Every order I followed... every time I accessed those hospital archives six years ago... it was Vance! He knew about Evelyn's pregnancy before you did because he had an informant inside St. Catherine’s billing department!"
I stepped out from behind Adrian, my gun still raised, my voice vibrating with rage. "You forged my signature six years ago! You watched me give birth in that clinic! Why didn't you take them then?"
Vivian looked up at me, her face contorted with guilt and terror. "Because I couldn't do it! I hated you, Evelyn! I hated you because Adrian looked at you the way he never, ever looked at me! But when I saw those two tiny babies in those incubators... they were so small. They were fighting for every single breath. I told Vance you had miscarried! I falsified the death certificates in the Boston city archives!"
I gasped, the air rushing out of me.
"You... you hid them?" I whispered.
"I hid them for six years!" Vivian wept, clutching her head in her hands. "Until three days ago, when Vance’s hackers broke into Harvard's medical registry and found your research papers! He realized the children were alive! He threatened to send my sister’s fingers to me in the mail if I didn't give him the Mercer trust codes to breach this building!"
Adrian’s eyes narrowed into slits of ice. "Where is Vance now?"
"He's on the Calumet freight yards," Vivian gasped, pointing a shaking hand toward the eastern corridor. "He has an armored train waiting on the private spur! He didn't come for the children himself, Adrian... he sent his personal executioner, Marcus's former bodyguard, to blow the bunker doors from the inside!"
A deafening explosion rocked the stairwell.
The shockwave knocked us against the wall, plaster dust raining down like a white curtain.
From the floor above, a high-pitched scream tore through the ringing in our ears.
Emma’s scream.
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Adrian didn't wait for the smoke to clear. He surged forward with a roar of pure, unadulterated fury, tearing up the stairs like a demon unleashed from the depths of hell.
***
