Chapter 3 - The Safe House
I did not hesitate for a single second.
I fired two precise shots into the chest of the first man, dropping him instantly to the porch.
The second man raised his weapon, but I kicked the heavy oak door directly into his face.
He stumbled backward, giving me exactly enough time to drag my mother toward the back exit.
We ran through the muddy garden, hopped the neighbor's low fence, and disappeared into the rainy night.
I kept a stolen, untraceable vehicle parked exactly three blocks away for emergencies just like this.
We drove in complete silence for two hours until we reached a secure cabin hidden in the woods.
My mother collapsed onto the dusty sofa, weeping uncontrollably as the adrenaline finally left her body.
I locked the reinforced steel door and pulled out an encrypted satellite phone to call Ethan Reyes.
Ethan had been my trusted partner in the FBI for ten years, and I needed his official clearance.
I quickly explained the armed mercenaries and the money laundering files I had stolen.
Ethan was completely silent on the other end of the line for a long, agonizing moment.
He told me he had just run Garrick's facial recognition through the federal database.
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The man married to my mother was not named Garrick Vance.
His real name was Viktor Volkov, and he had been presumed dead by the CIA for seven years.
