Chapter 12 - The Driveway Standoff
Caroline screamed, jumping backward as snow and bone fragments sprayed across her pristine parka.
The second contractor, stationed by the driver’s side of the SUV, swung his rifle toward the porch, screaming into his radio: "Ambush! Officer down! We have an ambush—"
A deafening blast echoed from the broken second-floor window.
A heavy clay flowerpot came hurtling down through the smoke, followed by an explosion of birdshot.
Maya was leaning out of the shattered frame, holding the snub-nosed .38 revolver I had dropped in the bedroom. Her hands were shaking violently, but she was firing down at the second contractor.
The bullet struck the SUV's windshield, spiderwebbing the glass an inch from the driver's face. The contractor scrambled for cover behind the engine block, pinned down.
I didn't waste a second.
I rolled out of the snowbank, ignored the screaming pain in my broken left arm, and lunged for the dead contractor's fallen tactical carbine with my right hand.
I brought the rifle to my shoulder, flicked the selector switch to semi-automatic, and sighted down the barrel.
Caroline spun to run toward the vehicle.
"Freeze!" I yelled, my voice cutting through the roar of the burning house. "One more step, Caroline, and I take your knee off!"
She froze dead in her tracks.
She turned around slowly, her hands raised, the snow melting on her blonde hair. The heat from the burning house was so intense now that the snow around our feet was turning into muddy slush.
"Ryan," she said, her voice trembling, finally losing every ounce of her professional composure. "Listen to me. Aegis has satellite tracking on this car. If I don't check in every fifteen minutes, an entire tactical division will be here. You can't run. You have nowhere to go."
"Where's the code for the girls' neural baseline?" I demanded, keeping the rifle locked on her chest. "Thorne said you had the master drive."
Caroline swallowed hard. She reached slowly into her heavy parka pocket, pulling out a heavy, encrypted titanium flash drive on a stainless-steel lanyard.
"Everything is on here," she said, holding it out. "The names of every Aegis facility. The medical records. The identities of all the surrogates, including Lily’s real parents."
My heart pounded against my ribs. "Lily’s parents are alive?"
"Her mother is a pediatric surgeon in Chicago," Caroline whispered, tears finally welling in her cold eyes. "She’s been searching for her for four years. I stole her from the maternity ward to be your 'anchor.' You needed a child to stabilize your fabricated identity after we wiped you."
A sick wave of nausea swept through me. This woman hadn't just monitored me; she had engineered a hellscape of stolen lives and broken families just to keep a corporate secret buried.
Behind me, the front door of the burning house burst open.
Maya stumbled down the porch steps, carrying Lily in her arms. Clara was running beside her, clutching Maya's coat. They were coughing, their clothes singed, but they were breathing clean, cold air.
"Mommy!" Lily cried out, seeing Caroline.
Lily took a step forward, confused, reaching out toward the woman who had raised her for four years.
Caroline looked at the little girl, her face hardening again. "Stay back, Lily. You're just a biological variable."
Lily stopped dead in her tracks. That simple, cruel sentence shattered the little girl more than any physical blow could have. A silent tear traced through the soot on her cheek.
May you like
From behind the SUV, the surviving contractor saw his opening.
He stepped out from behind the front bumper, bringing his rifle up to execute Maya and the children.
