Chapter 2 - THE AWAKENING
The black-site medical facility was located three hundred feet beneath a shell corporation's logistics warehouse in Virginia. It was sterile, quiet, and impenetrable.
I sat in a steel chair beside Emily's hospital bed for thirty-six hours without sleeping, eating, or speaking. I watched the steady rise and fall of her chest as the IV fluids and heavy antibiotics fought the severe infection raging in her bloodstream.
According to the trauma surgeons, Marcus and Beatrice had locked her in an unheated basement room for three days without food or water. The fever was a result of a severe untreated respiratory infection brought on by the freezing dampness.
On the morning of the second day, her eyes fluttered open.
"Dad?" her voice was a dry, raspy whisper.
I leaned forward, taking her fragile hand in both of mine. "I'm right here, sweetie. I'm right here. You're safe."
Tears welled in her eyes, spilling over her bruised cheekbones. "I'm sorry, Dad. I didn't want to call you. I know you left that life behind... I didn't want to drag you back in."
"Emily, listen to me," I said, my voice thick with emotion. "There is nothing on this earth I wouldn't burn to the ground to keep you safe. Why did they do this? Marcus was a good man when you married him."
Emily looked away, ashamed. "He wasn't, Dad. It was an act. His family’s real estate company has been bankrupt for two years. They are deeply in debt to some very dangerous people in Miami. Marcus thought... he thought because of your military pension, you had millions hidden away. When I told him you really were just a retired mechanic, they snapped. Beatrice said I was useless to them. They were going to keep me locked up until you signed over everything you owned."
A cold, terrifying calm settled over my mind. It was the same icy clarity I used to feel before dropping into hostile territory in Fallujah or Kandahar.
They didn't just abuse my daughter. They had taken her hostage for a ransom they thought I possessed.
"Rest now, Em," I whispered, kissing her forehead. "I have to go to work."
May you like
I walked out of the medical bay and down the sterile white corridor, pulling my encrypted phone from my pocket. I dialed a number that hadn't been active in five years.
"We need the war room," I said when the line clicked open. "The mechanic is clocking out."
