MY SON BEGGED ME NOT TO MARRY HER—THEN I FOUND MY DEAD WIFE’S HIDDEN TAPE EXPOSING MY BROTHER’S SICK CONSPIRACY

The smell of diesel fuel hit my nostrils a fraction of a second before I noticed the transparent puddles covering the concrete floor.

The security guards had soaked the drainage channels around Bay 4 with fuel while Frank and I were talking inside.

“You’re pathetic, Dan,” Carter said, taking a slow step forward, his eyes shining with manic triumph. “Always the detective. Always the righteous doctor. You really thought Frank would keep your secrets? Who do you think pays his daughter’s mortgage?”

I looked at Frank. The old mechanic’s eyes went dead. He stepped quietly toward Carter’s side, keeping his head lowered.

Frank hadn't confessed to me out of guilt. He had stalled me until Carter’s strike team arrived.

“You killed Elena,” I said, tucking the ABS module into my inner jacket pocket and gripping Marcus’s Glock inside my waistband. “Your own sister-in-law. Noah’s mother.”

“She wouldn't stop digging!” Carter roared, losing his composure for a split second, his voice bouncing off the high steel rafters. “She found the offshore accounts in the Caymans! She was going to go to the SEC on Monday morning! Do you know what happens to Mercer Logistics if the federal government audits our books? We’re broke, Dan! The company has been bankrupt for eighteen months!”

“So you killed her for trust money?”

“Eighty million dollars buys a whole new life in a non-extradition country,” Carter spat. “And once the court signs Noah over to me tomorrow at noon, I liquidate the entire fund. Victoria takes five million. Frank gets his retirement. And you? You get an unmarked grave in the pine barrens.”

Carter raised his thumb over the remote trigger.

I didn't try to reason with him. I fired three rounds straight through the pressurized hydraulic lift line suspended above Carter’s guards.

High-pressure hydraulic fluid blasted into the face of the lead guard, blinding him instantly with a scream of agony. The spray ignited off an exposed halogen lamp, creating a roaring fireball that separated me from Carter’s line of fire.

Carter stumbled backward, coughing through thick black smoke as his guards blindly fired into the haze. Bullets chewed through the wooden workbench, sending wood splinters and metal tools clattering everywhere.

I dove through the side pedestrian door, hit the gravel hard, and scrambled into the maze of shipping containers.

Behind me, the fire in Bay 4 roared into life, setting off the terminal’s shrill industrial fire alarms.

I ran through the rain, blood dripping from a gash on my forehead where a ricocheted piece of concrete had grazed me. I cleared the cut section of chain-link fence and sprinted up the logging road toward Grace’s Subaru.

I threw open the driver’s door, panting, smelling of smoke and diesel.

“Go! Drive!” I yelled.

Grace slammed the shifter into drive and floored it. The tires spun in the mud before gripping the gravel, throwing us onto the dark highway.

“Daniel, you’re bleeding!” Grace cried, glancing at my face while keeping both hands on the wheel.

“I have the module,” I panted, pulling the heavy ABS component and the thumb drive from my pocket. “The telemetry log proves Elena’s car was remotely hacked. Carter ordered it.”

In the back seat, Noah was awake, staring at the blood on my face.

“Dad?” he whispered, his lip trembling. “Are the bad men coming?”

I reached into the back, taking his small hand into mine. “No, buddy. Daddy’s got you. Nobody is ever going to hurt you again.”

Grace cleared her throat. Her voice sounded strained. Strange.

“Daniel,” she said, her eyes fixed on the empty highway ahead. “Check the thumb drive. What’s the serial number on the casing?”

I looked down at the small black drive in my hand. Engraved on the metal clip was a five-digit number: 09142.

My blood ran cold.

That wasn't a Mercer Logistics company inventory number. It was the private security registration code for the legal trust Elena had created before her death. A code only three people on earth possessed: Elena, myself, and Elena’s private family attorney.

“Grace,” I said slowly, turning my head toward her. “How did you know there was a serial number on this drive?”

Grace didn't answer.

Instead, she reached down to the center console, picked up a burner phone that had just lit up with an incoming call, and tapped the speaker button.

The voice on the other end was Victoria’s.

“Grace, Carter failed at the depot. Did you secure Noah?”

The next chapters are on the left side of your screen.