Chapter 3 - The Underground Escape
Mark did not even flinch as the barrel of the suppressed pistol pointed at his heart.
"You really think you can shoot me in front of my children?" Mark challenged in a dangerously calm voice.
Elias laughed, a dry and humorless sound that echoed off the wooden walls of the tavern.
"I am getting paid ten times what you have in that wallet to keep you right here until the retrieval team arrives," Elias sneered.
I pulled the girls behind me, my mind racing for any possible weapon in the small room.
Evelyn slowly raised her hands in the air, pretending to surrender completely.
"Please, Elias, just let the mother and the children go," Evelyn begged, stepping closer to his table.
"Nobody is leaving, old woman," the smuggler barked.
Suddenly, Evelyn kicked the heavy wooden table with an explosive force I never expected from an elderly woman.
The table crashed directly into Elias, pinning his arms against his chest and knocking the gun to the floor.
Mark leaped over the overturned wood and delivered a brutal punch to the smuggler's jaw.
Elias collapsed onto the dirty floorboards, completely unconscious.
"I survived on the streets of this city for five years," Evelyn panted, rubbing her bruised knee.
"I know how to fight dirty."
"Grab his keys," Mark said, searching the unconscious man's pockets.
He pulled out a ring of heavy brass keys and tossed them to Evelyn.
"There is a smuggling tunnel beneath the tavern that leads directly to the old sewer system," she explained.
We rushed to the back of the room and unlocked a heavy iron grate set into the floor.
A terrible stench rose from the darkness, but we had absolutely no other choice.
Mark climbed down the rusted ladder first, reaching his arms up to catch our three daughters.
I climbed down next, feeling the damp, freezing air bite into my skin.
Evelyn followed close behind, pulling the heavy grate shut and locking it from the inside.
We turned on the small flashlight Mark kept on his keychain.
The narrow brick tunnel was filled with ankle-deep water and scurrying rats.
"We have to walk for two miles before we reach the old subway access point," Evelyn whispered.
We waded through the filthy water in complete silence for what felt like an eternity.
My youngest daughter began to shiver violently in the freezing dampness.
I took off my wool coat and wrapped it tightly around her tiny shoulders.
"We are almost there," Evelyn promised, pointing to a faint light in the distance.
We finally reached a rusted metal door that opened into an abandoned subway maintenance corridor.
Mark pushed the door open, and we stepped onto dry concrete.
We all collapsed onto the floor, exhausted and covered in foul-smelling grime.
"We need a safe place to hide and regroup," Mark said, wiping dirty water from his face.
I looked at the hospital envelope Evelyn had given us back in the square.
I carefully pulled out the birth record and flipped it over.
On the back of the paper, someone had scribbled an address in faded blue ink.
"Evelyn, do you know what this address is?" I asked, handing her the document.
Evelyn squinted at the writing in the dim light, and her face turned completely pale.
"That is the private estate of Dr. Vance, the man who runs the entire surrogacy agency," she gasped.
"Then that is exactly where we are going tonight," Mark decided with a terrifying determination.
"We are going to make him tell us where Clara is."
Suddenly, my middle daughter pointed her small finger toward the dark end of the concrete corridor.
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"Mommy, why is that red light looking at us?" she asked innocently.
I turned my head and saw a military-grade security drone hovering silently in the shadows, its red lens aimed directly at our faces.
