"Hey." I set down the woman, crouched beside the cell. "We're getting you out of here. Can you walk?"
He didn't answer. Just stared.
"I need you to try. Can you do that for me?"
Slowly, painfully, he nodded. I cut the lock. Helped him stand. He was shaking so badly he could barely move, but he was moving—one foot in front of the other, following me and the elderly woman I was carrying again, toward freedom.
We were ten feet from the exit when the door exploded inward.
The detonation threw all three of us against the ground. I threw myself over the boy, who landed closest to me, shielding him as debris rained down. When I looked up, three figures stood silhouetted in the doorway—tactical gear, automatic weapons, faces hidden behind balaclavas, only their eyes visible. And before them, stepping through the smoke with the calm confidence of someone who owned the world, was Michelle Chen.
She looked exactly like she had at the hospital—immaculate, composed, not a hair out of place despite the warzone around her. Her suit was different—tactical black instead of charcoal grey—but that cold smile was the same.
"Mr. Nakamura." Her voice was pleasant, professional. "We really must stop meeting like this."
"Let them go." My voice came out steadier than I felt. "The victims are already clear. It's over, Chen."
"Is it?" She gestured, and one of her men grabbed the elderly woman who had landed 7 feet away from me, dragged her up with a gun to her head. "Doesn't look over to me."
"FBI is thirty seconds out. You're surrounded."
"Am I?" That smile widened. "Funny thing about the FBI. I've spent twenty years building relationships there. You'd be surprised how many agents answer to me."
As if on cue, new gunfire erupted outside—different pattern, different weapons. FBI tactical teams had arrived. But instead of converging on Chen's mercenaries, they seemed to be fighting... each other?
"Your brother's backup," Chen said, reading my expression. "Unfortunately for him, two of those 'trusted agents' have been on my payroll for years. Right now, they're keeping Sarah and her team very, very busy."
My heart sank.
"Here's what's going to happen." Chen moved closer, and I could smell her perfume—something expensive, floral, obscenely out of place in this nightmare. "You're going to come with me. Quietly. And in exchange, I'll let these last few sheep go."
"And if I refuse?"
She nodded to her man. The gun pressed harder against the elderly woman's temple. She whimpered, barely conscious but aware of the danger pressing against her head.
"Then I start reducing the surplus population."
The boy behind me was trembling, clutching my jacket. The woman's eyes were wide and lost with terror. Three mercenaries, automatic weapons, no cover, no backup?—
"Okay." The word scraped out of my throat. "Okay. Let them go."
"Child, no—" The woman started.
"Shut up." Chen's mask slipped, just for a second—that reptilian coldness underneath. "Mr. Nakamura has made his choice. Wise man." She gestured to her team. "Secure him. Let the others?—"
The window behind her exploded.
Declan's rifle cracked once more. Two mercenaries dropped, one with half his head missing. The third spun, raising his weapon toward the window?—
I moved.
The tactical pen was in my hand before I consciously reached for it. I drove it into the third mercenary's throat, just belowthe balaclava. He gurgled, and dropped with a hollow thud. I grabbed his weapon, spun?—
Chen had the elderly woman in front of her like a shield, a compact pistol pressed to her head. "Impressive." She wasn't smiling anymore. "Your brother taught you well."
"Let her go."
"Or what? You'll shoot through a hostage?" She was backing toward a side door, dragging the woman with her. "I don't think so. Not the heroic nurse who saves lives."
