Chapter 4 - SOMEONE INSIDE THE HOTEL
Emergency lights flooded the security office red.
I reached for my radio.
Nothing.
Someone had disabled communications.
“Elena, stay down.”
Alexander moved beside her.
I opened the backup security console.
Half the cameras were offline.
That shouldn’t have been possible.
Only three people had administrative access.
I was one of them.
My deputy was another.
The third—
I stopped.
Marcus Vale.
My night security supervisor.
He had been hired six months earlier.
Recommended personally by Charles Whitmore.
I pulled up the access logs.
Marcus had entered the control system two minutes before the blackout.
“Alexander.”
He looked at me.
“We have someone inside.”
A crash sounded in the hallway.
Then footsteps.
Fast.
Alexander pushed Elena behind the desk.
The door opened.
Marcus appeared.
But he wasn’t carrying a weapon.
He was bleeding from his forehead.
“They took her.”
“Who?”
“Your daughter.”
My stomach dropped.
“Sophie?”
He nodded.
“Cynthia.”
I ran.
Nothing else mattered.
Not Alexander.
Not Elena.
Not eighty million dollars.
My child.
The ballroom was chaos when we returned.
Guests crowded around exits.
Security struggled to restore order.
I shouted.
“SOPHIE!”
No answer.
Then my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
Cynthia’s voice whispered through the speaker.
“Your daughter saw too much.”
My entire body went cold.
“Where is she?”
“You want Sophie back?”
“Yes.”
“Then bring Elena’s key.”
The call ended.
Alexander stared at me.
“We’re getting your daughter.”
Elena stepped forward.
“Take the key.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
Elena looked surprised.
“If we give them what they want, Sophie becomes the only witness they still need to silence.”
Alexander understood immediately.
“So we give them something else.”
I looked at him.
“What?”
He picked up the fake pregnancy prosthetic from the evidence table.
“A lie.”
May you like
For the first time that night, we stopped reacting.
We started hunting them.
