Chapter 4 - The Painted Target
Julian dropped instantly, rolling sideways across the stairs as high-velocity rounds shattered the ornate mahogany banister above them. Wood splinters showered over them like shrapnel.
Claire let out a stifled cry, her hands flying to her ears. The sudden surge of adrenaline spiked her heartbeat; on her wrist, the timer let out three rapid, high-pitched warning beeps. The digital display skipped forty seconds in penalty, plummeting the remaining time to one minute and fifty seconds.
""Calm,"" Julian hissed, pinning her beneath his body against the interior wall, out of the sniper’s direct angle through the skylight. ""Breathe, Claire! Think of Lily. Look at me!""
Claire stared into his eyes, forcing her chest to rise and fall in long, agonizing rhythms. The shrill beeping ceased, but the digits continued their relentless descent: 01:28... 01:27...
Julian drew Miller’s backup pistol from his coat pocket. He couldn't eliminate the sniper outside in the dark, but the muzzle flash had come from the ridge near the old carriage house. He fired three suppression shots into the upper frame of the skylight, sending heavy sheets of laminated safety glass crashing down to the marble floor below. The noise masked the sound of his footsteps as he pulled Claire down the corridor into the children's nursery.
The room smelled of dried lavender and old paint, frozen in time since the day Claire had vanished. Lily’s white wooden crib sat in the corner beneath a mobile of hand-carved wooden birds.
Julian barricaded the oak door with a heavy toy chest and lowered Claire gently onto the rug. ""Where beneath the crib?""
""The third plank from the wall,"" Claire gasped, her breathing ragged. ""The family trust... Marcus forged the ownership transfer. But the original hard drives with the foreign bank routing numbers are there.""
Julian ripped the rug aside, wedged his knife beneath the floorboard, and pried upward. The wood splintered with a dry pop. Inside the dark cavity lay a matte-black steel lockbox—and beside it, a digital frequency jammer, humming with an idle blue light.
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Marcus hadn't hidden it. He had left it as bait.
Julian reached for the box just as the bedroom window exploded inward. A concussion grenade rolled across the hardwood, sizzling with an blinding white fuse.
