Chapter 3 - The Safehouse
I immediately pulled Ethan behind the thick concrete pillar to avoid the blinding light.
Two men in dark tactical gear were slowly walking down the subway stairs, sweeping the area with their weapons.
I recognized the corporate logo on their tactical vests.
They were heavily armed mercenaries employed by my own company's private security division.
I had literally signed their paychecks last week, and now they were hunting me.
I quietly grabbed a heavy piece of broken rebar from the trash-littered floor.
When the first guard stepped past the pillar, I swung the iron bar as hard as I could.
It struck him directly behind the knees, sending him crashing heavily to the concrete.
I grabbed his dropped rifle and aimed it at the second guard, forcing him to drop his weapon.
"Run, Ethan!" I yelled, pushing the boy deeper into the abandoned maintenance tunnels.
We navigated the dark, rat-infested corridors for nearly an hour until I was certain we were not followed.
We finally emerged through a rusted grate into a quiet alleyway in the South Loop.
I led Ethan up three flights of fire escape stairs to an off-the-books apartment I kept for extreme emergencies.
The safehouse was completely dark, smelling of old dust and stale coffee.
I locked the deadbolts and immediately closed all the heavy steel blinds.
I found a dry towel in the bathroom and tossed it to the shivering boy.
"Dry your hair before you freeze to death," I instructed him gently.
I walked over to the hidden floor safe and pulled out my heavily encrypted laptop.
I needed to access my company's secure mainframe to trace the barcode on Ethan's neck.
My fingers flew across the keyboard as I bypassed the firewall I had built myself.
I typed in the numerical sequence tattooed on the child's skin.
The search results populated instantly, flashing a highly classified medical dossier on the screen.
The file did not list Ethan as an orphan or a ward of the state.
It classified him as a primary biological donor for a massive, illegal organ-harvesting operation.
I read the horrific details, realizing that this boy was bred specifically to be a living spare parts facility for someone extremely wealthy.
I scrolled down to see the name of the billionaire client funding this sick experiment.
Before my eyes could focus on the name, a loud, desperate knock echoed from the apartment door.
I grabbed the stolen rifle and aimed it squarely at the wooden frame.
The door slowly creaked open, revealing a man bleeding profusely from a severe gunshot wound to his stomach.
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It was my wife's younger brother, Lucas, a man I hadn't seen since Sarah's funeral.
"She told me you would come here, Andrew," Lucas gasped, collapsing onto my floor in a pool of blood.
