Chapter 6 - The Lion's Den
I dropped to my knees and aggressively shook Elias awake, demanding to know where my daughter was.
He coughed violently and clutched a deep, bleeding knife wound on his lower abdomen.
He gasped that a strike team had silently breached the back window while I was searching the attic.
They had used silenced tranquilizer darts to incapacitate him before snatching Sophie from the couch.
My mother had successfully captured my daughter, and the timer on her implant was already ticking down again.
I felt a cold, murderous rage completely consume every single rational thought in my brain.
Elias struggled to his feet, refusing to let me face the syndicate's private army all by myself.
He told me that my mother's primary base of operations was a heavily fortified estate just ten miles away.
We bandaged his wound tightly with a ripped bedsheet and immediately piled back into the heavily damaged SUV.
Elias drove with reckless abandon, fully embracing the desperate, suicidal nature of our final mission.
We approached the massive iron gates of the estate, which were guarded by heavily armed men in tactical gear.
Elias did not even touch the brakes as we accelerated to over eighty miles per hour.
Our heavy armored vehicle smashed violently through the reinforced iron gates, sending the metal doors flying into the courtyard.
The guards opened fire immediately, but the thick bulletproof glass held just long enough for us to reach the main entrance.
We crashed the SUV directly through the grand oak doors of the mansion, coming to a halt in the lavish main foyer.
I kicked my door open and stepped out into the smoke, holding the folded will high in the air.
Dozens of laser sights instantly appeared on my chest, but I did not flinch or take a single step backward.
I screamed at the top of my lungs, demanding that my mother show her face right this instant.
The armed guards parted slowly, creating a path for an elderly woman dressed in an immaculate white suit.
My mother smiled warmly at me, acting as if I had just arrived for a pleasant Sunday dinner.
She was holding the black master remote in one hand and tightly gripping Sophie's shoulder with the other.
Sophie was awake now, crying silently as the red light beneath her skin blinked faster and faster.
My mother politely asked me to hand over the document before the timer reached zero.
I demanded that she turn off the device and release my daughter first.
She laughed a cold, soulless laugh and pressed a button on the remote, causing Sophie to drop to her knees in pure agony.
My mother informed me that I was in absolutely no position to negotiate terms with her today.
She gave me exactly ten seconds to hand over the will, or she would fry Sophie's spine right in front of me.
May you like
I took a slow step forward, holding the fragile paper out toward her waiting hand.
But instead of handing her the document, I pulled a silver lighter from my pocket and flicked the flame to life.
