Chapter 9 - The Leverage
"No!" Danielle shrieked, throwing herself onto the cold, wet gravel and sliding desperately toward the edge of the roof.
She reached her arm down into the darkness, her fingers blindly searching for her son through the freezing rain.
By some sheer miracle, her hand clamped securely around Ethan's wrist just as his body dangled precariously over the five-story drop.
"Hold on, Ethan, I have you," Danielle grunted, her muscles screaming in agony as she supported the teenager's entire body weight.
Behind her, another gunshot rang out, followed immediately by the heavy, satisfying thud of Marcus's body hitting the concrete floor.
Sarah rushed to the ledge, holstering her smoking weapon and grabbing Ethan's other arm to help pull him upward.
Together, the two mothers dragged the bleeding teenager back over the concrete ledge to absolute safety.
Before they could even catch their breath, the heavy steel doors to the roof were kicked open with violent force.
Richard stepped onto the roof, flanked by five heavily armed elite tactical operatives wearing night-vision gear.
He walked calmly over to Marcus's dead body and picked up the crying baby from the ground, holding Liam dangerously close to the ledge.
"You have always been so dramatic, Danielle," Richard sneered, his eyes locking onto his bleeding teenage son.
"Hand over the encrypted journal your fake mother gave you, Ethan, or I drop your new little brother into the courtyard."
Danielle felt her entire world collapsing, knowing that handing over the research would give Richard the power to become untouchable.
But Ethan simply laughed, clutching his bleeding shoulder as he stood up to face his biological father.
"You are too late, Richard," Ethan said loudly, a triumphant smile spreading across his pale face.
"I connected to the mansion's satellite uplink twenty minutes ago, and I didn't just call you on the radio."
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Ethan pulled his shattered phone from his pocket and tossed it onto the ground at Richard's feet.
"I uploaded every single page of your illegal genetic research directly to the servers of every major global news network."
