Chapter 5 - The Inside Man
Vincent felt the floor drop out from beneath him.
Thomas.
His right hand.
The man who had stood beside him at his father’s funeral.
“Thomas,” Vincent whispered, his voice vibrating with lethal intent.
“You’re working with Silas.”
“Silas pays better,” Thomas replied casually over the phone.
“And Silas doesn't have a moral crisis every time we need to break someone’s legs.”
In the background, Vincent could hear Emma crying.
The sound tore through something deep inside his chest.
“If you hurt that child, Thomas, there is no hole on this earth deep enough to hide you from me.”
Thomas laughed.
“I’m not going to hurt her, boss.”
“I’m just going to leave her in the penthouse.”
“With the C4.”
The line went dead.
Vincent shoved the phone into his pocket and sprinted for the elevator.
The power had been cut by Silas’s men.
He threw open the emergency stairwell door.
The penthouse was on the thirtieth floor.
Vincent began to climb.
His lungs burned.
His legs cramped with lactic acid.
He ignored the pain, driven by the memory of a little girl in a red coat drinking hot chocolate.
She had come to him for help.
She had trusted him.
He reached the thirtieth floor in exactly eight minutes.
He kicked the heavy door open and ran down the hallway.
The door to the penthouse was wide open.
Marcus’s body lay in the entryway, a single gunshot wound to the head.
Vincent stepped over his loyal driver and moved into the living room.
Emma was sitting on the sofa, clutching her stuffed rabbit, tears streaming down her face.
Beneath the glass coffee table, a brick of C4 was wired to a digital timer.
The red numbers were counting down.
Zero minutes and forty-five seconds.
Vincent ran to the sofa and scooped Emma into his arms.
“I've got you,” he promised, holding her tight against his chest.
“Mr. Calder,” she sobbed into his shoulder.
“Don't look at the floor, Emma,” Vincent commanded softly.
He carried her out into the hallway and sprinted for the stairwell.
He didn't have time to run down thirty flights.
He kicked open the door to the maintenance shaft.
Thirty seconds.
He wrapped his jacket around Emma to protect her face.
He grabbed the heavy elevator counterweight cable with his free hand.
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“Hold on tight, Emma!”
Vincent stepped off the ledge.
