Chapter 3 - The Shattered Sanctuary
"Maya, get down!" I lunged across the island, grabbing my daughter by the shoulders and dragging her to the linoleum floor just as a suppressed gunshot shattered the kitchen window. The glass exploded like diamond dust over our heads.
Fourteen years of being a single father had rewired my instincts. There was no room for panic, only a primal, overwhelming drive to protect my cubs.
"What's happening?!" Maya screamed, covering her ears.
"Stay low! Crawl to the hallway!" I ordered, shoving the thumb drive and the letter into my pocket.
Heavy boots crunched on the hardwood in the living room. Two men. Maybe three. They were moving with tactical precision, sweeping the rooms.
"Chloe! Lily!" I yelled, abandoning stealth. The triplets' bedrooms were on the second floor. If these men reached the stairs before I did, we were dead.
I scrambled from the kitchen into the dark hallway, pulling Maya behind me. At the top of the stairs, Chloe and Lily appeared, wearing their oversized pajamas, their eyes wide with sleepy confusion.
"Dad? Who is downstairs?" Lily asked, rubbing her eyes.
"Run to the back window! Now!" I roared.
A shadow stepped into the hallway. He was dressed in tactical black, holding a suppressed pistol. He raised the weapon toward me. I didn't think. I grabbed a heavy brass lamp from the console table and hurled it with every ounce of strength I had built up from years on the factory assembly line. It struck the man squarely in the face. He grunted and stumbled backward.
"Move! Out the back!" I shoved Maya up the stairs and chased right behind her. We burst into Lily's room, slamming and locking the door behind us.
"Dad, what is going on?!" Chloe was crying now, hyperventilating. "Who are they?!"
"There's no time to explain," I said, shoving Lily's dresser against the door. "Your mother is alive, and we are being hunted. Out the window. To the old oak tree, just like we used to practice for fire drills."
The girls were terrified, but they trusted me. They had trusted me for fourteen years. Lily went out first, shimmying onto the sloped roof, followed by Chloe, then Maya. Just as I climbed onto the window sill, the bedroom door exploded inward, splintered by a shotgun blast.
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I threw myself backward out the window, rolling down the asphalt shingles and plummeting into the damp grass of our backyard. The girls were already running toward my beat-up Ford pickup truck parked in the alley.
I scrambled to my feet, ignoring the searing pain in my shoulder, and sprinted after them. As I threw the truck into gear and slammed on the gas, I looked in the rearview mirror. Our home—the sanctuary I had spent fourteen years building—was swarming with armed men. We were officially on the run.
