Chapter 6 - THE ABDUCTION OF HANNAH
The peace was an illusion, a brief gasp of air before being dragged underwater.
It happened on a Tuesday, exactly three weeks after the grocery store incident. I had moved Hannah and the kids to a secondary safe house on the outskirts of the city, a heavily guarded compound surrounded by miles of dense forest. I thought they were hidden. I thought I had outsmarted a ghost.
I was at the downtown docks, overseeing a shipment of weapons, when my burner phone buzzed. It was Silas.
"Boss," Silas said, his voice tight with panic. "The compound. We were hit. An EMP knocked out our comms and cameras. They came through the woods. Heavy armor."
My blood turned to liquid nitrogen. "The kids. Hannah."
"Sophie and the twins are secure in the panic room. I got them in just as the doors blew. But..." Silas hesitated, a sound I had never heard from the hardened veteran. "They took Hannah, Andrew. She fought them off so I could seal the panic room door. She sacrificed herself to save the kids."
The phone cracked in my hand as my grip tightened. A primal, guttural roar ripped from my chest, echoing off the steel shipping containers. My men turned, their faces paling at the sight of my absolute, unchecked fury.
"Rally everyone," I barked into the shattered phone. "Every single man on our payroll. If they can hold a gun, they are marching today. We are going to war."
I drove my armored SUV back to the compound at over a hundred miles an hour, ignoring the police sirens that briefly trailed me before giving up. When I arrived, the compound was a smoking ruin. The heavy steel doors of the safe house were blown off their hinges. My guards were scattered across the lawn, dead or bleeding out.
Silas was waiting for me by the panic room, a nasty gash across his forehead. He punched the code into the keypad, and the heavy door slid open.
Sophie was huddled in the corner, her arms wrapped fiercely around her baby brothers. When she saw me, she didn't cry. Her eyes were hard, a haunting reflection of the violence she had just witnessed.
"Mr. Andrew," she said, her small voice eerily calm. "They took my mommy. The bad man with the scar on his neck took her."
Marcus. He had led the raid himself.
I knelt down in front of her, gently brushing a smudge of soot from her cheek. "I know, little bird. And I am going to bring her back. Do you understand me? I am going to bring her back, and I am going to make sure that man never, ever comes near you again."
"Are you going to hurt him?" she asked, her big brown eyes staring into my soul.
"Yes," I answered honestly. "I'm going to hurt him very badly."
I stood up, turning to Silas. "Move them to the underground bunker beneath the city bank. No one knows about it. Only you and me."
"And you?" Silas asked, his eyes grim.
"I'm going hunting."
May you like
I walked out of the ruined compound, the scent of smoke and blood fueling the dark beast inside me. Marcus had finally made his move. He had taken the woman I loved. He had brought his war to my doorstep, but he had forgotten one crucial detail.
I was Andrew Whitaker. I didn't fight wars. I ended them.
