Chapter 12 - The Kidnapping in the Rain and the Lion Uncaged
While Nathan was mobilizing his security team in downtown Pittsburgh, an unexpected nightmare was unfolding at St. Jude’s Academy.
School had dismissed early due to a severe localized flash flood warning.
Mrs. Higgins was on her way in the family Range Rover to pick up June, but traffic across the Highland Park Bridge was completely paralyzed by an overturned delivery truck.
Standing under the school’s covered portico, June held her backpack, watching the heavy rain pour down the stone steps.
A black SUV with tinted windows pulled into the private circular driveway. The passenger door opened, and a man dressed in a sharp chauffeur's uniform stepped out with a large umbrella.
"June Vance?" the man asked politely.
June looked at him cautiously, remembering Nathan's strict rule: Never speak to anyone who isn't Mrs. Higgins, Callahan, or Daddy.
"My name is June Cole," she corrected firmly, taking a step back toward the school doors.
"Your father sent me, June," the man said with a rehearsed, friendly smile. "Mrs. Higgins’s car broke down on the bridge in the flood. He told me to show you this."
The man held out a laminated card. It was a Cole Meridian executive security badge with Nathan's official signature.
June hesitated. The badge looked completely real. But then she looked down at the man’s shoes. They were dirty work boots, not the polished dress shoes that Nathan’s drivers always wore.
"I’ll wait for Mrs. Higgins inside," June said, turning quickly to run back toward the classroom.
The man’s friendly facade vanished.
He lunged forward, grabbed June by the arm, and clamped a gloved hand over her mouth before she could scream. He lifted her effortlessly off the ground, threw her into the backseat of the SUV, and slammed the heavy door shut.
The SUV accelerated out of the school driveway, spraying rainwater across the sidewalk, speeding toward the industrial docks along the Monongahela River.
Inside the SUV, June fought with every ounce of strength she possessed. She kicked, scratched, and bit the arm of the second man holding her down in the leather seat.
"Hold her still!" the driver barked.
June managed to wrench her mouth free. "My daddy is going to kill you!" she screamed at the top of her lungs. "He’s going to find you!"
"Shut up, kid!" the man growled, tying a zip-tie around her wrists. "Your daddy is going to pay fifty million dollars, and then you'll be on a bus to another state."
June looked down at her hands. The zip-tie bit into her skin, right beside Clara’s silver bracelet.
She stopped screaming.
She remembered what Nathan had told her on the night she had a fever: 'You are a Cole. You are brave, and Daddy will always find you.'
She took a deep breath, clenched her teeth, and looked out the window, carefully memorizing every bridge, every billboard, and every turn the car took through the rain-soaked industrial district.
Meanwhile, in the Maybach speeding down Route 28, Nathan’s phone rang.
It was Mrs. Higgins, sobbing uncontrollably. "Mr. Nathan! The school called! A vehicle with forged credentials took June from the portico five minutes ago!"
Nathan’s world went dead silent.
The air inside the Maybach turned freezing cold. The driver, Marcus, looked in the rearview mirror and saw a look in Nathan Cole’s eyes that terrified him—a look of absolute, unadulterated, apocalyptic rage.
"Marcus," Nathan whispered, his voice dangerously low. "Activate the GPS transponder in Clara's bracelet."
Marcus’s eyes widened. "The bracelet has a tracker?"
"I had a micro-transponder embedded inside the silver casing the day I got it back from the jeweler," Nathan said, his knuckles turning white as he gripped his phone. "Track it now."
Marcus tapped the laptop screen. A blinking red dot appeared on the satellite map, moving south along River Road, heading directly toward the Monongahela freight warehouse.
"We have her," Marcus announced.
May you like
Nathan clicked the safety off the handgun he pulled from the hidden lockbox under his seat.
"Floor it," Nathan commanded. "If a single hair on her head is harmed, none of them walk out of that building alive."
