Doctors gave my six-year-old twins ten days to live, and for the first time, every dollar, weapon, and ounce of power attached to my name meant absolutely nothing.

"Arthur! Stop!" Franklin Yates screamed, stumbling forward onto the slick concrete, his hands still bound behind him. "He knows everything! He has the server logs!"

Arthur didn't even glance at his brother. His eyes remained locked on me, his finger tightening on the trigger.

"Franklin, you were always a weak, sniveling disappointment," Arthur called out, his voice sharp and pitiless against the gale-force wind. "You let a grieving father break you."

BANG.

A high-caliber round slammed into Franklin Yates's shoulder. He shrieked, falling backward onto the wet roof, blood pooling around him in the rainwater.

Before Arthur could level the gun back at me, I dropped to one knee, raised the tactical shotgun I’d taken from the stairwell, and fired directly into the rotor assembly gearbox beneath the helicopter’s main drive shaft.

The heavy solid-slug round struck the mechanical housing with a shower of orange sparks.

The helicopter engine let out a terrifying, metallic screech. The main rotors bucked violently, throwing off their balance, sending a wave of black smoke billowing from the engine cowl.

The pilot immediately cut the throttle, dumping emergency fuel as the aircraft settled heavily onto its skids, disabled.

"Guard the case!" Arthur roared to his two tactical contractors.

The two guards opened fire. Bullets ricocheted wildly off the concrete parapet behind me.

I rolled to my left behind a heavy industrial HVAC unit, returning fire with my sidearm. I took out the first guard with two shots to the chest. The second guard lunged around the air handler, but I grabbed his weapon barrel, twisted his wrist until the bone snapped, and slammed his head into the steel casing until he went limp.

I stepped out from behind the HVAC unit, my weapon raised.

Arthur Yates was standing ten feet away, backed up against the low safety railing at the edge of the twelve-story building. The silver cryogenic case sat on the wet concrete between his feet.

He was shaking now, his composure entirely gone. He held his handgun with both hands, aiming blindly through the rain.

"You can't save them, Lawson!" Arthur screamed, his voice cracking with panicked desperation. "If I drop this case over the ledge, the vials shatter! Your children die in two hours!"

I stopped five feet from him, the rain streaming down my face, my weapon pointed straight between his eyes.

"Set the case down, Arthur," I said, my voice as cold as the wind sweeping off the lake.

"Give me a vehicle! Let me reach the airport!" Arthur demanded, backing his heels up until they hit the low stone ledge. One bad step meant a hundred-and-fifty-foot drop to the pavement below. "Give me your word as a Mercer that you won't pursue me, or I swear to God I'll kick this case off the roof right now!"

I didn't answer.

Instead, I tapped my earpiece. "Marcus. Now."

Across the roof, the heavy industrial emergency speakers installed for building evacuations suddenly burst to life with a crackle of static.

A voice echoed across the rain-swept roof—a soft, warm, gentle voice that stopped Arthur Yates dead in his tracks.

"Arthur. If you're hearing this, it means my husband found you."

It was Genevieve's voice.

Arthur gasped, his head snapping toward the speaker horn mounted on the central stairwell tower.

"I recorded this audio file three days before you had your men cut my brake lines," Genevieve’s recorded voice continued, smooth and unwavering. "I knew you were arrogant enough to keep the genetic sequence. I knew you thought you were smarter than Lawson. But Lawson doesn't fight for money, Arthur. He fights for his family. And you've already lost."

The distraction was all I needed.

I closed the distance in a split second, swinging the barrel of my weapon across Arthur’s wrist. His gun flew from his grip, clattering across the wet concrete.

Arthur stumbled backward over the low stone ledge, his arms flailing wildly as his balance vanished over the abyss.

"Lawson! Help me!" Arthur shrieked, his hands frantically catching the outer concrete lip of the roof.

He hung there, twelve stories above the street, his fingers slipping on the slick, rain-soaked stone.

I stepped up to the edge.

Below him, six police cruisers with flashing lights pulled into the alleyway, their searchlights cutting through the rain.

I looked down into Arthur Yates’s terrified, tear-filled eyes.

"Please..." he sobbed, his fingernails bleeding as he scraped against the masonry. "Save me... I'll tell you how to administer the enzyme! I'm the only one who knows the exact dosage!"

I reached down, picked up the silver cryogenic case from the concrete, and checked the digital temperature gauge on the side.

Minus 80 Degrees Celsius. Stabilized.

I looked back down at the man who had ordered my wife’s murder and tried to turn my children into a corporate commodity.

"Elena has the medical files, Arthur," I said softly. "We don't need you."