Chapter 3 - Blood and Betrayal
The user ID glaring on my screen belonged to my own father.
I stared at the flashing red letters, desperately hoping it was some kind of sick technological glitch.
My father was the man who had walked me down the aisle just an hour ago.
He was the one who kissed my cheek and told me how incredibly proud he was of the woman I had become.
Agent Miller noticed my absolute shock and asked who had locked the system down.
I could barely force the words past my lips as I whispered my father's name.
It suddenly all made terrifying sense to me.
My father's real estate empire had been on the verge of total bankruptcy last year.
Adrian had swooped in as the wealthy savior, promising an infusion of cash if I agreed to marry him.
I thought my father was just a desperate businessman trying to save his legacy.
I never imagined he was an active co-conspirator in Adrian's criminal underworld.
He had sold me to a monster just to keep his luxury cars and country club memberships.
My phone vibrated violently in my hand, flashing an incoming call from an unknown number.
I answered it on speakerphone, and the cold, familiar voice of my father filled the dark SUV.
He told me I had made a terrible mistake by embarrassing Adrian in front of the entire city.
I screamed at him, demanding to know how he could let Adrian take Lily as a hostage.
My father's sigh was heavy and completely devoid of any parental warmth.
He calmly explained that Lily was just collateral damage in a much larger financial game.
He ordered me to give Agent Miller a fake location and turn myself over to Adrian's men immediately.
If I cooperated, he promised Lily would be returned unharmed by tomorrow morning.
If I refused, he said Adrian would make sure neither of us ever saw the sun rise again.
I felt a tear slide down my cheek, but I quickly wiped it away with the back of my hand.
I told my father he was dead to me, and I disconnected the call before he could respond.
Agent Miller slammed his foot on the gas pedal, weaving recklessly through the highway traffic.
We were only five miles away from the private airfield now.
I opened a secondary backdoor program I had designed for exactly this kind of emergency.
If I couldn't drain the accounts, I could at least scramble the encrypted communication towers Adrian relied on.
I hit enter, successfully jamming the radio signals of every private security team in a ten-mile radius.
Adrian was now completely blind and cut off from his backup forces.
Agent Miller praised my quick thinking, checking his weapon one last time as we approached the airfield gates.
Suddenly, the massive front tires of our SUV exploded with a deafening pop.
The vehicle violently spun out of control, smashing through the metal guardrail of the highway.
We flipped twice in the air before crashing heavily into the muddy embankment below.
The world spun in dizzying circles as the smell of gasoline filled my lungs.
I blinked away the blood dripping into my eyes, trying to unbuckle my jammed seatbelt.
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Through the shattered window, I saw the heavy boots of a man walking slowly toward our wrecked car.
He was carrying a silenced pistol, and he was aiming it directly at my head.
