Chapter 6 - Into the Cold Rain
Three floors above him, Mara pressed both hands beneath her ribs as the second blast rocked the building. The heat from the explosion below radiated through the floorboards.
She pulled out her phone, her fingers slick with cold sweat. She pressed Adrien’s speed dial.
Across the smoke-filled lower bunker, Adrien’s phone vibrated in his pocket, but he didn't check it; he was shoving Simone into the reinforced panic room while Victor secured the heavy steel door.
In the burning wing above, Mara listened to the cold, rhythmic ringing in her ear. One time. Two times. Three times.
Then, the line went dead.
Mara lowered the phone, her face completely numb. The red emergency lights cast long, bloody shadows across the hallway.
"Mrs. Cole! We have to go NOW!" Pike shouted, kicking open a jammed fire exit door that led out onto the metal emergency fire escape.
The freezing winter rain hit Mara like a wall of ice as she stepped out into the night. Rain lashed against her face, soaking her hair and her silk dress within seconds. Down below, the grounds of Blackthorn House were in complete chaos. Black SUVs were tearing across the lawn, automatic gunfire echoed near the front gates, and smoke rolled into the dark sky.
Mara didn't look back. She clutched her swollen belly with one hand and the encrypted drive with the other, taking the metal stairs as fast as her body allowed.
They reached the muddy lawn near the north perimeter wall. The wind was howling, tearing the breath from her lungs.
"Pike! Where’s the fence break?" Mara called out through the roaring storm.
Pike led her toward a dense thicket of pine trees bordering the massive stone wall. Hidden behind the brush was a freshly cut opening in the heavy iron fencing.
"Go through!" Pike ordered, drawing his weapon and covering their rear. "Your father’s transport should be on the outer access road!"
Mara squeezed through the torn iron fence, her feet sinking deep into the freezing mud of the outer forest. She scrambled up the embankment, every breath burning in her chest.
She made three hundred yards into the blinding rain before she saw it—a white vehicle sitting on the shoulder of the dark, abandoned county road.
It was an ambulance.
Mara slowed her pace, her heart hammering wildly. The ambulance sat idling in the heavy downpour. It ran completely without a siren. No flashing lights red or blue. Just the dull glow of its headlights cutting through the sheets of rain.
Mara approached the passenger side, her vision blurred by water and exhaustion. "Dad?" she whispered into the wind.
The heavy passenger door swung open.
The man sitting inside, holding a silenced pistol rested casually on his knee, was not a medic. He wore a sharp black suit and a radio earpiece.
"Mrs. Cole," the man said with a terrifyingly polite smile. "Master Hail sent us to ensure your private transfer goes smoothly."
Mara froze, her blood turning to ice water in her veins.
Before she could scream or turn to run, a second figure stepped out from the shadows behind the vehicle, a damp cloth soaked in heavy chloroform pressing firmly over her nose and mouth.
Mara fought with everything she had, kicking and twisting, her hand desperately clutching the sonogram picture tucked in her pocket. But the drug took effect with terrifying speed.
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As her vision faded into complete darkness, she heard the ambulance door slam shut, and the smooth rolling of tires against wet asphalt.
The transfer order that reached Saint Jude’s Hospital high-security wing that night had been signed digitally at 11:15 PM—a full hour before anyone in the public, or the police, or Adrien Cole himself could have known where Mara Bennett Cole was.
