Chapter 4 - The Ransom of Blood
I answered the phone with trembling hands, praying it was just a false alarm about Brandon's fever.
"Claire, they broke into the apartment," the teenage babysitter sobbed hysterically into the receiver.
"Who broke in?" I screamed, entirely abandoning any pretense of professional behavior.
"Men in dark suits took Brandon and Emma, and they told me to tell you not to speak to the police," she cried.
The phone slipped from my sweaty fingers and shattered against the hard marble floor.
Victoria had realized who I was the moment she saw me, and she had immediately targeted my children.
I fell to my knees, completely paralyzed by the agonizing thought of my babies in the hands of killers.
Julian stood up from his wheelchair again, his eyes blazing with a terrifying, absolute fury.
He pulled a hidden tactical radio from beneath the bathroom sink and issued a rapid series of commands.
"My private security team is already tracking their vehicle through the city cameras," Julian promised me.
He grabbed a heavy black coat and a concealed pistol from a secret wall compartment.
"We are leaving right now to get your children back," he vowed with deadly conviction.
We slipped out through a hidden service elevator, completely bypassing Victoria's corrupt house guards.
Julian drove his black armored SUV through the rainy streets of Chicago at terrifying speeds.
His tablet beeped, displaying a GPS coordinate located at an abandoned shipping yard near the river.
"They are holding them in warehouse number four," Julian stated, checking the magazine of his weapon.
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As we pulled up to the dark building, my phone received a terrifying text message from an unknown number.
It was a live video feed showing my son Brandon tied to a chair with a ticking time bomb strapped to his small chest.
