Chapter 20 - THE FINAL WARNING
"She... she didn't come for the deeds, Daniel," Vanessa choked out, blood trickling from her nose as the halon gas starved her system. "My mother... she lied to me... she lied to all of us..."
Suddenly, a loud blast echoed from the courtyard outside.
Daniel spun around, keeping his weapon trained low.
Victoria was standing in the pouring rain beside the black SUV, but she wasn't alone. She had pulled a secondary communicator from her pocket, and her face wasn't the face of a defeated woman. It was twisted into a hideous, victorious grin.
"Did you really think I brought my best men to the front door, Daniel?!" Victoria’s voice roared through the thunder. "Vanessa was always the diversion! She was the bait to draw your security into the courtyard!"
Daniel’s blood turned to ice. "Emma... where is Sophie?!"
Emma turned white. "She was right behind me in the cellar! She was supposed to stay by the emergency exit!"
Daniel sprinted past Vanessa, dashing out toward the rear corridor leading to the service entrance.
The heavy steel door of the rear exit hung wide open in the wind, swinging violently on its hinges. Rain poured onto the hardwood floor.
Lying on the threshold was Marcus’s radio, smashed into pieces.
Beside it, lying in a puddle of rainwater, was Sophie’s cello bow, snapped in half.
Daniel fell to his knees in the rain, his heart shattering into a million pieces. He picked up the broken wooden bow, his hands trembling with an agony worse than death.
In the distance, disappearing into the dark forest roads behind the estate, the distinct sound of a high-powered engine roared, tearing away into the storm.
Emma sprinted to Daniel’s side, clutching his radio, her voice shaking with terror. "Daniel... the tracking chip in Sophie’s emergency watch... it just activated."
Daniel looked up, his eyes hollowed out by pure, primal fury. "Where is it pinging?"
Emma stared at the screen, her hand trembling violently as the red dot moved at impossible speed across the digital map.
"It’s not heading toward the city, Daniel," Emma whispered, tears pouring down her face. "It’s heading toward the private docks. Toward the industrial shipping container yards at the harbor. And the signal... Daniel, the signal is dropping fast. It's moving out onto the water..."
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Before Daniel could scream his daughter's name, his phone buzzed in his pocket. A single text message from an untraceable satellite link appeared on the screen:
*Seventy-two hours, Daniel. If you contact the authorities, she goes to the bottom of the Atlantic. Welcome to the real game.*
