Chapter 13 - The Safehouse Ambush
Hook:
“Where is Toby, Leo?” Elena yelled, slicing my zip-ties with a tactical blade.
Conflict:
My head snapped toward the corner where Toby had been. Then I remembered: I had left him in the diner booth with Elena’s junior partner, Detective Miller.
Mark, pinned to the floor by two deputies, started laughing. It was a wet, ragged, mocking sound that made my skin crawl.
Discovery:
“You think you’re so smart, Elena,” Mark sneered, blood dripping from his lip onto the white tile. “You think you're the only one who has friends on the county payroll? Check on Detective Miller. Go ahead. Call him.”
Elena’s face drained of color. She pulled her radio from her shoulder mic. “Unit 4, status at the Elm Street diner. Miller, respond.”
Static.
“Miller, report!”
A strange voice crackled over the radio, rough and flat:
*“The kid is traveling with us now, Detective. Tell Leo if those Aegis files leave that room, his son doesn't make it to his eighth birthday.”*
Twist:
Mark hadn’t come to the hospital alone. He had sent an extraction team to the diner the moment his surveillance tagged my truck. Toby had been the insurance policy all along.
Emotion:
The room spun. My vision tunneled into pure black rage. I grabbed Vance’s fallen metal clipboard and drove the edge against Mark’s throat before the deputies could pull me off.
“Where is my son?!” I bellowed, my voice tearing in my throat. “WHERE IS HE?!”
Cliffhanger:
May you like
Mark choked beneath the metal edge, a terrifying smirk twisting his features. “Drop the charges, burn the flash drive, and pull her plug yourself. You have two hours, Leo. Or Toby gets the cold juice next.”
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