“She didn’t tell you yet,” Eleanor whispered. “She wanted to surprise you when you came home. She went to Victor that night to tell him she was leaving the family for good. She told him, ‘My child will not grow up around a monster like you.’“
I stared at the paper. A baby. We were having a baby.
“Victor couldn’t handle that,” Eleanor continued. “He wanted to wipe the slate clean. He wanted to kill the baby.”
“Did… did the baby survive?” I asked, my voice cracking.
Eleanor looked down. “The report from the ER said trauma to the abdomen. I don’t know, Hunter.”
I stood up. The rage I felt before was a candle flame. What I felt now was a nuclear explosion.
“Thank you, Eleanor. Go home. Lock your doors.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to finish this. I’m going to kill them all.”
—————
The sun was bleeding into the sky—a bruised purple dawn—when I reached Victor’s estate. The “Fortress,” he called it. Twelve-foot walls, electrified wire, cameras.
I parked in the woods and moved on foot, scaling a massive oak tree that overhung the perimeter wall. I dropped onto the manicured lawn, moving like a ghost from shadow to shadow until I reached the main house.
I peered through the living room window. They were there—the remaining Wolf Pack. Victor, Dominic, Evan, Felix, Grant, Ian, Kyle. They looked exhausted, arguing.
Then, a man in a white lab coat walked into the room. Dr. Sterling. The chief of surgery at St. Jude’s. Why was he here?
I pressed my ear against the glass.
“Complications?” Sterling was saying. “But she is stable for now.”
“And the extraction?” Victor asked. “Successful?”
Sterling nodded. “The C-section was performed immediately upon arrival. The trauma induced labor, but the fetus was viable. Thirty-two weeks, not eight. The report Eleanor saw was old. She was much further along than she told anyone.”
My knees hit the grass. Thirty-two weeks. Eight months. She had been hiding it, wearing loose clothes, protecting him.
“And the child?” Victor asked.
“He is in the neonatal incubator in the basement,” Sterling said. “Healthy. Strong lungs.”
“Good,” Victor said. “My buyer arrives tomorrow. A healthy male heir with clean genetics fetches a high price.”
The world went silent. They hadn’t killed my son. They had stolen him. They beat my wife into a coma to induce labor so they could sell our child.
The mission parameters shifted instantly.
Priority One: Secure the asset (my son).
Priority Two: Eliminate hostiles.
I moved to the basement access doors. I pried the lock and slipped inside. The basement was a fully equipped private medical clinic. And there, in the center, was an incubator.
Inside lay a tiny, wriggling baby boy. He had dark hair. My hair.
“I’m here, buddy,” I whispered, placing a gloved hand on the glass. “Dad’s here.”
I heard footsteps on the stairs.
“Check the levels,” Victor’s voice drifted down. “Dominic, check the generator.”
I hid behind a stack of oxygen tanks. Dominic burst into the room, flashlight sweeping. He walked over to the incubator and tapped on the glass hard.
“Little bastard,” he sneered.
That was it. I stepped out. “Don’t touch him.”
Dominic spun around, reaching for his gun. He was too slow. I grabbed him by the throat and slammed him against the wall.
“Shhh,” I whispered. “You’ll wake the baby.”
I squeezed. I crushed his windpipe—not enough to kill instantly, but enough to ensure he wouldn’t breathe without a tube ever again. He slumped to the floor. I took his gun and his phone.
I sent a text to the group chat from Dominic’s phone: Generator acting up. Send Evan.
Two minutes later, Evan came down. I neutralized him with a sleeper hold before he even saw me. I dragged them both into a supply closet.
I looked at the oxygen tanks. Highly flammable. I loosened a valve, letting gas hiss into the room. I unplugged the incubator—it had a battery backup—and loaded it onto a rolling cart.
I rolled my son out the storm doors and hid the cart behind a thick hedge fifty yards away. Then I went back to the door, lit a road flare, and yelled.
“VICTOR!”
I tossed the flare into the gas-filled room and slammed the door.
BOOM.
The explosion blew the basement windows out and shook the foundation. Smoke poured from the vents. I ran back to the hedges, rocking the cart. “Just fireworks, Leo. Just fireworks.”
The front door of the mansion burst open. Victor and the remaining sons stumbled out, coughing, blinded by smoke. They thought the baby was burning.
I watched them from the tree line. I could have shot them all right then. But death was too easy.
I picked up Dominic’s phone. While they fought the fire, I accessed their offshore accounts. Dominic had all the passwords saved. Arrogance.
I transferred every cent—millions of dollars—to a charity for domestic violence victims. Then I forwarded the files on their illegal arms dealing to the FBI and the Washington Post.
“Checkmate,” I whispered.
Sirens wailed in the distance. The police were coming. Victor heard them too.
“We have to go!” Victor screamed. “The Feds will be here!”
They ran toward their SUVs. They were fleeing to their doomsday cabin in the mountains. I knew they would.
I retreated into the woods with my son, moving to a safe house nearby to hand Leo off to Eleanor. I had one last stop to make.
—————-
I reached the mountain cabin at midnight. The snow was falling heavy and silent. I cut the fuel line to their generator, pouring sugar into the tank. It would kill the power slowly, flickering like a dying heartbeat.
I watched through the window. Victor, Felix, Grant, Ian, Kyle. They were terrified.
I kicked the back door open and threw a flashbang. BANG.
I walked into the room as they screamed, blinded. I held the hammer.
“Hello, boys,” I said. “Who wants to be number three?”
Felix swung a pistol blindly. I smashed his wrist with the hammer. He howled. Kyle tried to run; I knocked him cold with the handle.
Victor sat in his chair, leveling a gun at me with shaking hands. He fired. Missed. The generator outside died, plunging the cabin into darkness.
“You think you can erase me?” Victor snarled. “I built this town!”
“Walls fall faster when the fire starts inside,” I said.
I knocked the gun from his hand and shattered his wrist. He fell to the floor, sobbing.
“Thirty-one strikes,” I said. “You remember that number?”
