The second impact against the warehouse door shook dust loose from the ceiling.
Caleb shoved me behind a steel filing cabinet while Noah dragged Gabriel away from the window. Somewhere in the darkness, Leo swore under his breath, and Marcus’s phone screen flashed briefly before he covered it with his palm.
“Kill every light,” Caleb said.
“They’re already dead,” Julian answered.
“I mean phones.”
One by one, the screens disappeared.
I still had Isaac against my ear.
“Flora?” His voice came through the phone in a whisper. “Are you there?”
“Who’s outside?”
“I don’t know.”
“You just told me Victor arranged this.”
“I said he wanted all of you together. I didn’t say he told me every detail.”
Another crash hit the outer door.
Metal groaned.
My heart hammered so hard I could hear it.
“Isaac, how did Victor know where we were?”
Silence.
That answer mattered more than anything he could have said.
I pulled the phone away.
Noah caught my wrist.
“Don’t hang up.”
I looked at him through the darkness.
“He’s tracking us.”
“Exactly.”
Noah took the phone and passed it to Caleb.
Caleb crouched behind the desk, turned the speaker volume almost completely down, and set the phone beside him.
“Isaac,” he said quietly. “Keep talking.”
There was a pause.
Then my husband’s voice came through.
“Who is this?”
“The brother you should have worried about.”
Leo almost laughed despite everything.
Caleb’s eyes remained fixed toward the warehouse entrance.
“How many men did Victor send?”
“I don’t know.”
“You know something.”
“I know he has people who handle problems.”
“What kind of problems?”
“The kind that disappear.”
Gabriel closed his eyes.
The office suddenly felt smaller.
Outside, the outer lock snapped.
Caleb lifted one hand.
Nobody moved.
The warehouse had two internal routes from the loading area to our office. Caleb had already studied them when we arrived. One ran through the central storage floor. The other followed a narrow maintenance corridor along the north wall.
A faint footstep sounded from the central floor.
Then another.
Too careful.
Too slow.
These weren’t thieves.
Noah leaned toward me.
“Where is your key?”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“The brass key Dad gave you.”
“At home.”
“Good.”
Marcus whispered, “My token is in a safe.”
Leo said, “Compass is in my office.”
Julian’s fountain pen sat in a bank deposit box.
Caleb’s metal card was hidden somewhere he didn’t disclose.
Then everyone looked toward Noah.
He touched his wrist.
The watch.
Our father’s watch was on his arm.
Gabriel saw it too.
“Take it off.”
Noah removed it immediately.
“Why?”
“Because if Victor knows what the objects are, that’s what he came for.”
A shadow moved beyond the frosted office glass.
Caleb drew a compact weapon from beneath his jacket.
I had never seen him carry one.
That was somehow more frightening than the men outside.
He pointed toward the back wall.
“There’s an emergency exit through the maintenance room.”
Gabriel shook his head.
“Alarmed.”
“Not anymore.”
“How?”
“I disabled it when we arrived.”
Another shape appeared outside.
Then a man’s voice.
“Gabriel.”
My uncle froze.
The voice was calm.
Familiar to him.
“Come out.”
Gabriel’s face changed.
Noah whispered, “You know him?”
Gabriel nodded.
“Elias Mercer.”
“Who?”
“Victor’s oldest fixer.”
Mercer spoke again.
“This doesn’t need to become ugly.”
Leo glanced toward my wrists.
“Bit late for that.”
Mercer continued.
“We want Richard’s authentication pieces.”
Gabriel looked at us.
There it was.
Confirmation.
Not speculation.
Not theory.
They knew exactly what our father had left behind.
Caleb whispered to Noah, “Get Flora to the maintenance room.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“You’re the only one wearing a piece.”
Noah opened his mouth to argue.
A bullet punched through the frosted glass.
The sound exploded through the office.
I dropped to the floor.
Julian pulled Gabriel down.
Another shot struck the wall.
Then Mercer called out, still calm.
“That was your warning.”
Caleb fired once toward the ceiling above the central floor.
The men outside scattered.
“Move!”
Noah grabbed my hand.
We ran.
The maintenance room was barely wide enough for two people side by side. Pipes crossed the walls, and the concrete floor was slick near an old drainage channel.
Leo came behind us.
Marcus and Julian followed.
Caleb stayed at the office entrance.
Gabriel was last before him.
We reached the emergency door.
Noah pushed.
Nothing.
He pushed again.
“Caleb!”
“Locked from outside.”
That made no sense.
The exit opened into a fenced service lane.
Nobody should have reached it without passing the exterior cameras.
Then I remembered.
The cameras had gone dark before the door was breached.
Someone had been positioned outside already.
“We were surrounded before they came in,” I said.
Gabriel looked at me.
“Yes.”
Caleb arrived.
“They’re checking the office.”
“How much time?”
“Seconds.”
Noah examined the emergency lock.
It was magnetic.
Marcus took out a multitool.
“Move.”
“You can bypass that?”
“I can ruin it.”
“Good enough.”
He stripped the casing.
I stood against the wall, listening to men moving deeper into the warehouse.
Then my phone, still with Caleb, spoke.
Isaac.
“Flora?”
Everyone looked at the device.
“Flora, answer me.”
Caleb picked it up.
“What?”
Isaac was breathing hard.
“I know who’s there.”
“We already know.”
“No. You don’t understand.”
“Then make me understand.”
“They’re not there to kill you.”
Gabriel laughed bitterly.
“That’s reassuring.”
Isaac continued.
“Victor needs every piece intact.”
Caleb frowned.
“So?”
“So he needs each Sterling alive until he knows where the pieces are.”
That changed the room.
Not safer.
Different.
I took the phone.
“Isaac, how do you know this?”
“He told me what would happen if you called your brothers.”
“When?”
“This afternoon.”
Before the party.
Before the wine.
Before the rope.
Before I had called Noah.
Everything had been prepared.
“You knew tonight was a trap.”
Isaac’s voice broke.
“I knew he wanted them there.”
“And you did it anyway.”
“I thought he was going to pressure them.”
“By having you beat me in front of fifty people?”
“No. That wasn’t part of it.”
I laughed once.
The sound frightened even me.
Of course it wasn’t.
Victor hadn’t ordered every strike.
Isaac had added his own cruelty.
My husband had been given a match and decided to burn the whole house.
Marcus suddenly snapped the magnetic lock.
The door opened two inches.
Then stopped.
A chain had been wrapped around the outside handles.
Leo looked through the gap.
“Vehicle blocking the lane.”
Caleb swore softly.
Mercer’s voice came closer.
“Noah Sterling.”
My brother stiffened.
“I know you have the watch.”
Nobody spoke.
“You can keep your family alive,” Mercer continued. “Leave it in the office and we walk away.”
Gabriel shook his head violently.
“Don’t.”
Noah whispered, “Why?”
“Because the watch isn’t just authentication.”
“What is it?”
Gabriel hesitated.
“There’s data inside.”
Marcus stared at him.
“You knew?”
“Richard modified it himself.”
“What data?”
“I don’t know everything.”
Leo muttered, “I’m getting very tired of that sentence.”
Mercer called again.
“Thirty seconds.”
Noah examined the watch.
It looked ordinary.
Old stainless steel.
Scratched crystal.
Brown leather strap replaced twice since Dad died.
I remembered my father wearing it at breakfast.
At meetings.
At my school graduation.
I had never imagined anything more complicated than gears existed inside.
Marcus took it.
“Mechanical back.”
He inserted his multitool beneath the casing.
“Don’t break it,” Gabriel warned.
“I’m not.”
The back came loose.
Inside, beneath the movement, sat something that did not belong in an antique watch.
A tiny black storage module.
Caleb leaned close.
“Encrypted chip.”
Gabriel nodded.
“Richard’s insurance.”
Mercer counted outside.
“Twenty seconds.”
Marcus removed the chip.
Noah put the watch back together.
“What if we give them the empty watch?”
“They’ll check.”
“Not immediately.”
Caleb understood.
He took the watch.
“Noah, Flora, Gabriel through the exit.”
“It’s chained.”
Leo stepped back.
“Not for long.”
He kicked the door beside the latch.
Once.
Twice.
The chain tightened.
Third kick.
The exterior handle tore partly free.
Fourth.
The door burst open.
Cold night air rushed inside.
A man outside shouted.
Caleb fired into the warehouse ceiling again, creating enough confusion for Leo to tackle the guard beside the service lane.
Noah pulled me through.
We ran toward the vehicle blocking the alley.
Its engine was running.
The driver opened his door.
Gabriel hit him with the emergency door’s broken handle before he could stand.
“Get in!”
It was almost absurd.
Six Sterlings, one supposedly dead uncle and a stolen SUV belonging to the people trying to abduct us.
Noah shoved me into the rear seat.
Caleb climbed behind the wheel.
Shots cracked behind us.
The rear window shattered.
I ducked.
Caleb reversed directly into the warehouse fence.
Metal folded.
He turned hard, drove over the collapsed section, and shot into the industrial road.
For several seconds nobody spoke.
Then Leo started laughing.
Not because anything was funny.
Because sometimes the body needs somewhere to put terror.
Julian looked at him.
“You need therapy.”
“We all need therapy.”
“Focus,” Noah said.
Marcus held the tiny chip between two fingers.
“This is why they came.”
Gabriel shook his head.
“No. It’s one reason.”
“What’s the other?”
“You.”
He looked at each of us.
“Victor has spent years trying to reconstruct Richard’s archive. He can’t access it without all six authentication pieces.”
My phone rang again.
Isaac.
I rejected the call.
It rang immediately.
Again.
Again.
Caleb said, “Answer.”
I did.
“What?”
Isaac sounded panicked.
“You got out?”
“Yes.”
“Thank God.”
“Why do you care?”
He didn’t answer.
“Isaac.”
“Because Victor’s changing the plan.”
My stomach tightened.
“What plan?”
“He knows Mercer failed.”
“So?”
“I heard him make another call.”
I looked toward Caleb.
“To who?”
“I don’t know. But he said the warehouse no longer matters.”
A red light appeared behind us.
Then another.
Caleb glanced at the mirror.
“Company?”
Leo twisted around.
Two dark SUVs were following.
Fast.
Isaac continued.
“He said he already has the easiest way to make you cooperate.”
I gripped the phone.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
Then a different phone rang.
Noah’s.
He looked at the screen.
His face changed.
“Who is it?” I asked.
Noah answered.
He listened.
No words.
Just listened.
Then his eyes found mine.
“Flora.”
Something inside me went cold.
“What?”
He slowly lowered the phone.
“It’s Mom.”
I hadn't seen our mother mentioned in any of this.
She lived outside the city in the same quiet house she had moved into after Dad died.
Protected.
Private.
Far away from Sterling business.
“What happened?”
Noah’s jaw tightened.
“She never made it home tonight.”
Gabriel closed his eyes.
I stopped breathing.
Noah continued.
“Her driver was found unconscious beside the road.”
The SUVs behind us accelerated.
And in my hand, Isaac whispered through the phone:
“Flora, I think Victor has your mother.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 6: Victor Took the One Person We Thought Was Outside the War, Then Sent Me a Message Proving My Mother Had Been Keeping Secrets Too
On My Thirty-Fourth Birthday, Isaac Turned a Spilled Glass of Wine Into a Public Lesson He Thought I Would Never Answer
Part 5 of 10
