Chapter 9 - COLLATERAL DAMAGE
We thought it was over. We thought cutting off the head of the snake would kill the body. We were wrong.
While the FBI raided Kingsley's offices and we secured the boardroom, a rogue faction of Kingsley's men, paid off personally by a desperate Grant Harlan, hit the estate.
My phone rang as we were leaving the high-rise. It was the head of estate security. His voice was choked with blood.
"Boss... they breached the west wing. They... they took the girl."
The world stopped spinning. The air left my lungs.
"Nora?" Vincent caught me before my knees hit the pavement. "Nora, what is it?"
"Lily," I screamed, a raw, primal sound that tore my throat. "Grant took Lily!"
Vincent's face turned to stone. The silver in his eyes became something demonic. He pulled his phone out, dialing a number rapidly. "Lock down the city. The ports, the bridges, the rail yards. Nobody leaves Philadelphia. If you see Grant Harlan, you do not shoot. You hold him. I will skin him alive myself."
We tracked Grant's burner phone to an abandoned shipyard on the Delaware River—one of the very properties he had tried to steal.
The rain was coming down in sheets when our convoy ripped through the chain-link gates of the shipyard. Vincent didn't wait for the car to stop. He was out the door with his weapon drawn, moving through the darkness like a ghost. I followed closely behind Marcus, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
Inside the rusted warehouse, illuminated by a single halogen work light, Grant was holding Lily by the arm. She was crying, her tiny glitter sneakers muddy, her yellow cardigan soaked with rain.
"Stay back!" Grant yelled, waving a pistol wildly as Vincent stepped into the light. "I'll take her! I'll take her and we're getting on a boat out of here!"
"Daddy, let me go, you're hurting me!" Lily sobbed.
"Grant," I begged, stepping out from behind Marcus. "Please. She's your daughter. Just let her go. Vincent will let you walk away. Won't you, Vincent?"
Vincent's gun never wavered from Grant's head. "Let the child go, Harlan."
"You ruined my life!" Grant screamed at me. "I was a partner! I had everything! And you took this thug's side!"
In his hysteria, Grant’s grip on Lily loosened for a fraction of a second. But a fraction of a second was all Lily needed. Remembering the self-defense class I had put her in, she stomped her hard little glitter sneaker down onto Grant's instep.
Grant yelped, stumbling back.
Lily ran.
"Lily, get down!" Vincent roared.
Grant raised his gun toward Vincent, but he was too late. Two deafening shots echoed through the warehouse.
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Grant collapsed, the pistol clattering across the concrete. He wasn't dead, but the two bullets in his shoulder and knee ensured he wouldn't be running anywhere ever again.
I hit the ground, catching Lily in my arms, burying my face in her wet hair, sobbing uncontrollably. A moment later, Vincent's massive arms wrapped around both of us, shielding us from the cold, the rain, and the blood.
