Chapter 5 - The Siege Of The Victorian Estate
"They're inside," Agent Miller whispered, drawing his weapon and racking the slide with a crisp clack. "Caroline, take the girls into the sub-basement passage beneath the coal chute. Ryan, you're with me."
"No," I said, my voice hardening with an instinct I didn't know I possessed. "Nobody touches my daughters. Neither of them."
The memory was still gone, but the biological reality was burning in my blood. Maya and Lily were both my children. Caroline had spent five years living a lie, but she had kept Maya alive in secret while raising Lily in the light.
I scrambled out of the crawlspace into Lily’s bedroom.
Maya looked at me with those silver-gray eyes, trembling but silent. Lily had her arms wrapped around Maya’s waist, shielding her like an older sister, even though she was younger.
"Daddy?" Lily cried softly. "The bad noises are downstairs."
"I know, baby," I said, scooping both little girls into my arms simultaneously. Maya weighed almost nothing—she was frail, but she buried her face into the crook of my neck, gripping my collar with unbelievable strength. "I've got you. Both of you. I will never let anyone hurt you again."
Caroline emerged from the vent, her face set with grim determination. She pulled an emergency duffel bag from under Lily’s bed.
"The back staircase leads through the pantry," Caroline whispered. "There is an old root cellar behind the wine rack. It leads to the drainage tunnel under the carriage house."
"Miller, what's our firepower?" I asked, looking back toward the crawlspace.
Agent Miller didn't answer.
Instead, a muffled thud echoed from the attic vault, followed by the sound of a body hitting the floorboards.
I pushed Caroline and the girls behind me and peeked into the crawlspace.
Agent Miller was lying on his back in the narrow tunnel, a dark pool of blood spreading beneath his chest. Standing over him, holding a suppressed automatic pistol, was a man in a black tactical jacket.
He looked up, caught my eye, and smiled.
May you like
"Hello, little brother," the man said.
It was Julian.
