Chapter 16 - Cold Ground
Nathan bolted out the back door, ignoring Michael’s shouted commands to wait. The sub-zero wind tore through his coat, but adrenaline burned like kerosene in his veins.
Behind the red barn, illuminated by the floodlights of a black idling SUV, two men in heavy tactical parkas stood over a kneeling figure in the snow. A third man, tall and broad-shouldered with a scar running from his ear to his chin, held a squirming bundle wrapped in a blue wool blanket.
From the bundle came the terrified, muffled cry of a three-year-old child.
"Drop the iron, Mercer!" the scarred man shouted over the wind, raising a silenced pistol directly at the child's head.
Nathan froze in his tracks, forty feet away, the snow sinking beneath his boots. The cold seeped into his bones, but his eyes locked onto the blanket. A tiny face, pale and tear-streaked, with the unmistakable wide, dark eyes of the Mercer family, stared back at him. It was like looking into a mirror of his own childhood.
"Let him go," Nathan breathed, his chest heaving. "Take the company. Take every share, every patent, every cent in the offshore accounts. You want Mercer Manufacturing? I'll sign the transfer tonight."
The scarred man laughed—a dry, rattling sound swallowed by the storm. "You think this is about stock options, Nathan? Your daddy owed twenty million in 1995. With interest, that's eighty million. But more than that, Hector doesn't like being played. Your little blonde bitch made our boss look like an idiot for three years while she pretended to be a convict."
"She's serving time!" Nathan yelled, taking half a step forward.
"She’s serving time because it kept her alive!" The man cocked the hammer of his gun. "Hector’s instructions were simple. Burn the asset. Leave the father with the ashes."
*Crack!*
A high-caliber rifle shot roared from the pine ridge behind Nathan. The man standing to the left of the SUV folded instantly, collapsing into the snow with a crimson spray.
Michael stepped from the tree line, cycling the bolt of a precision hunting rifle with ruthless efficiency. "Move, Nathan!"
May you like
Chaos erupted. The second gunman fired frantically into the trees. Nathan didn't think; he lunged through the snow, tackling the scarred man around the waist. Both men slammed into the frozen ground, the gun flying from the man's grip into the snowdrifts.
***
