Chapter 13 - Blood in the Warehouse: Nathan’s Desperate Race Against the Clock
The abandoned Cole Meridian freight warehouse on the banks of the Monongahela River was a cavernous, decaying monument of rusted steel and broken concrete.
The sound of torrential rain hammering against the corrugated metal roof was deafening.
Inside an elevated supervisor’s office overlooking the empty warehouse floor, Richard Cole paced back and forth, clutching a glass of whiskey, his hair disheveled and his eyes bloodshot with manic desperation.
The door opened, and the two hired operatives threw June into a metal chair in the center of the room.
June landed hard on the concrete, her knees scraping the rough floor, but she didn't cry out. She pushed herself up, her gray eyes burning with defiance as she stared at her uncle.
"Look at you," Richard sneered, walking over and crouching down in front of her. "The little gutter rat who thought she could steal my inheritance."
"You're a coward," June said, her voice clear, steady, and fearless. "My daddy is going to tear this building down."
Richard laughed hysterically. "Your daddy doesn't even know where you are! By the time he figures it out, I’ll be on a private jet to Zurich with fifty million dollars, and you'll be in an unlicensed orphanage in Mexico."
Suddenly, the heavy iron roll-up doors at the far end of the warehouse exploded inward with a deafening crash.
A heavy armored truck smashed through the corrugated steel barriers, followed instantly by three black SUVs with their high-beam searchlights blazing through the darkness.
Flashbang grenades detonated across the lower floor with blinding white light and concussive thunder: BANG! BANG! BANG!
The hired security guards on the ground floor barely had time to draw their weapons before Marcus’s elite tactical team swarmed the floor, neutralizing them with ruthless, non-lethal precision.
Richard’s face drained of all color. His whiskey glass shattered on the floor. "How did he find us?! How?!"
The operative guarding the door pulled out a firearm, aiming it toward the metal catwalk leading up to the office.
The heavy wooden door of the office was kicked off its hinges with catastrophic force.
Nathan Cole strode through the doorway.
He wasn't wearing a suit. He wore a black tactical jacket soaked with rain, his face smeared with grease, his eyes burning with the lethal fury of a lion defending its cub.
The operative raised his gun, but Nathan moved with blinding speed. He closed the distance in two steps, grabbed the man's wrist, snapped the joint with an audible CRACK, and drove a devastating palm strike into his chest, sending the operative crashing unconscious into the metal filing cabinets.
Richard screamed in terror, scrambling backward toward the broken window, holding a jagged piece of broken glass. "Stay back, Nathan! Stay back or I'll jump!"
Nathan didn't even look at Richard.
He dropped to his knees in front of June.
His massive hands, which had just neutralized an armed operative, were trembling with profound gentleness as he pulled a tactical knife from his belt and sliced the zip-tie off her small wrists.
"June," Nathan choked out, his voice cracking with emotion. "Are you hurt? Did they touch you?"
June threw her arms around his neck, burying her face into his wet jacket. "I knew you’d find me, Daddy! I remembered the bracelet!"
Nathan held her so tight he could feel her rapid heartbeat against his ribs. He kissed her wet hair, closing his eyes as hot tears of relief spilled down his cheeks. "I’ve got you, baby. Daddy’s got you. It's over."
Behind them, Richard tried to sneak toward the catwalk stairs, but Marcus stepped through the door, pointing a sidearm directly at Richard’s chest.
"Move an inch, Richard, and I’ll save the state the cost of your trial," Marcus said coldly.
Nathan stood up slowly, lifting June into his left arm, holding her securely against his chest.
He turned his gaze toward Richard. The look in Nathan’s eyes made his cowardly half-brother collapse to his knees, sobbing in terror.
"Please, Nathan... we're brothers... family..." Richard begged, weeping on the wet concrete floor.
May you like
"You stopped being my brother the day you forged Clara's letters," Nathan said, his voice dropping into a terrifying, icy finality. "And you signed your own death warrant the moment you touched my daughter. You will spend the rest of your pathetic life inside a federal maximum-security penitentiary. Marcus, hand him to the FBI."
Nathan turned his back on his broken family, carried June down the metal catwalk through the flashing red and blue lights of fifty arriving police cruisers, and stepped out into the cleansing rain, holding his whole world safe in his arms.
