Chapter 13 - The Siege
Emergency lights illuminated the police station in red.
Victor’s men entered through the underground parking garage using stolen tactical credentials.
They cut communications and blocked the main exits.
Detective Bennett shattered the interview room’s observation window with a chair.
“Stay behind me.”
Adrian picked up a broken piece of metal.
Bennett aimed her weapon at him.
“Put it down.”
“You’ll need me.”
“I need you unarmed.”
A voice came through the station speakers.
Victor Lang sounded calm.
“Adrian, bring your brother to the evidence garage.”
Ethan looked at the camera.
“Where is Margaret?”
Victor answered as if he could hear him.
“Alive for the moment.”
Emily’s phone vibrated.
A live video appeared.
Margaret sat inside a van in the underground garage. Blood covered one side of her face. Her hands were bound.
Beside her stood Noah.
Emily stopped breathing.
“No.”
The protected apartment.
The officers.
The precautions.
None of it had mattered.
Noah wore his blue coat and clutched his stuffed elephant.
He looked terrified but unharmed.
Victor’s voice continued.
“Bring Ethan and Adrian. Emily may come if she wishes.”
Emily ran toward the corridor.
Ethan caught her.
“It’s a trap.”
“He has our son.”
“I know.”
“Then let go.”
Adrian stepped through the broken observation window.
“He needs all three of us alive.”
“For how long?” Emily asked.
Adrian did not answer.
They moved through the dark station behind Bennett.
Two officers lay wounded near the stairwell. Another officer, apparently one of Victor’s paid insiders, aimed his weapon at them.
Bennett fired first.
The corrupt officer fell.
They reached the underground level.
Victor waited beside a black medical van.
He was seventy years old, tall and silver-haired, wearing an immaculate charcoal coat.
He looked more like a respected philanthropist than a man who had built a criminal research empire.
Noah saw Emily.
“Mommy!”
Victor placed a hand on his shoulder.
Emily stopped.
“Take your hand off him.”
Victor smiled.
“You have protected him impressively.”
“I will kill you.”
“I believe you would try.”
Margaret raised her head.
“Emily, don’t give him anything.”
One of Victor’s guards struck her.
Ethan stepped forward.
“Touch her again and this ends.”
Victor looked almost amused.
“Still defending her after what she did?”
“She answers to us. Not you.”
Margaret’s eyes filled with tears.
Adrian approached the van.
“You promised no harm to the child.”
Victor’s smile faded.
“You promised to bring me the original samples.”
“I did.”
“Where are they?”
Adrian tapped his chest.
“The original sample is standing here.”
Victor’s gaze sharpened.
For decades, he had believed Adrian was the genetically valuable twin.
Later, he learned the mutation existed fully only through the brothers’ combined cellular interaction.
He had spent years trying to force a stable synthesis.
Noah’s inherited compatibility solved the final problem.
Victor opened the van’s rear doors.
Inside was a mobile surgical unit.
Three medical chairs waited.
Ethan understood.
“You planned to operate here?”
“I planned to collect what science requires.”
“You mean bone marrow.”
“Among other materials.”
“No,” Emily said.
Victor looked at her.
“Mrs. Hale, the therapy derived from them could cure diseases that kill millions.”
“You experimented on children.”
“Every generation benefits from sacrifices it prefers not to examine.”
“Noah is not your sacrifice.”
Victor sighed.
“Parents are naturally unable to assess the greater good when their own child is involved.”
Margaret laughed weakly.
“You always did love sounding noble while destroying people.”
Victor turned toward her.
“You sold me access to Ethan for twenty years.”
“I was afraid of you.”
“You were paid.”
Ethan looked at Margaret.
Another truth.
Another betrayal.
Margaret lowered her eyes.
“I took the money.”
“How much?” Ethan asked.
“It paid for the house. Your education. Your father’s debts.”
“You let him test me.”
“Only blood samples at first.”
“At first?”
Margaret wept.
“When you were nine, he demanded more. I brought you once. Then I saw Adrian.”
Ethan remembered the underground room.
“You knew he was alive.”
“Yes.”
“You lied on the phone.”
“I thought if Victor believed I still considered Adrian dead, he would let me leave with you.”
“Thirty-six years,” Adrian said quietly.
Margaret looked at him.
“I’m sorry.”
Adrian’s face remained expressionless.
“You chose him because you thought he was stronger.”
“I chose the bracelet.”
“You left me.”
“I came back.”
“When?”
“Three days later.”
Adrian’s composure cracked.
“What?”
“I returned to the hospital. Victor had moved you. Robert told me you died during testing.”
“You never searched.”
“I searched for years.”
Adrian shook his head.
“No.”
“I found you when you were sixteen.”
The garage fell silent.
“You found me?” Adrian whispered.
“I watched you from across the street. Victor had guards everywhere. When I tried to approach, Robert was killed.”
Ethan looked at her.
“You said Dad died of a heart attack.”
“He was poisoned.”
Victor’s patience ended.
“Enough.”
He signaled to the guards.
Bennett raised her weapon.
Gunfire exploded.
Emily dropped to the ground and crawled toward Noah.
Ethan tackled one guard.
Adrian attacked another with the metal shard.
Margaret threw herself sideways, striking Victor’s legs.
Victor fell.
Emily reached Noah and pulled him behind the van.
“Close your eyes,” she whispered. “Hold on to me.”
An engine roared.
A second vehicle crashed through the garage barrier.
Claire drove it.
She struck two of Victor’s guards and blocked the exit.
Police reinforcements entered through the stairwell.
Victor climbed into the medical van and started the engine.
Margaret was still attached to the floor by a chain around one ankle.
The van accelerated.
Ethan grabbed the rear door.
Adrian grabbed Ethan.
For one second, the brothers hung from the moving vehicle together.
Victor swerved toward a concrete support column.
Adrian shouted, “Jump!”
Ethan released the door.
Adrian did not.
The van struck the column.
Metal folded inward with a deafening impact.
Victor was thrown through the windshield.
The van spun and stopped against the wall.
Smoke filled the garage.
Ethan ran toward the wreckage.
Margaret lay unconscious inside.
Victor did not move.
Adrian was gone.
May you like
The rear doors stood open.
A trail of blood led toward an emergency tunnel.
