Follow the story into the next chapter and see what happens next.

-9-

“Did you really think,” Arthur Prescott’s voice echoed smoothly through the ruined warehouse, “that you could run from me, Julian? I own the roads you drive on, the cameras that watch you, and the police who are currently ignoring the explosion that just leveled this building.”

Julian didn’t speak. He fired three precise shots into the dark, dropping the two lead mercenaries before ducking behind a heavy steel pillar, pulling Nora down with him.

Return fire erupted in a deafening, terrifying roar. Bullets shredded the computer terminals, shattering monitors and sending glass flying like shrapnel. Elias returned fire with his heavy revolver, cursing loudly as he provided covering fire.

“Give me the journal, Julian!” Arthur shouted over the gunfire, remaining safely behind a wall of armored men. “Hand it over, and I’ll make sure your death is quick. If you force me to take it from you, I will let Victor spend three days peeling the skin off the girl before I let you die.”

“He’s not leaving any witnesses, Julian,” Elias yelled, reloading his revolver. “We have to get out through the floor vents!”

Before Elias could move, a sniper round tore through the darkness, striking the old journalist squarely in the chest. Elias collapsed backward, dropping his gun, his blood pooling rapidly on the concrete floor.

“ELIAS!” Julian roared. He leaned out and fired his remaining magazine, suppressing the advancing mercenaries, but there were simply too many of them.

“Julian, stop!” Nora screamed, grabbing his arm as he moved to reload. She looked at the laser sights dancing across the steel pillar they were hiding behind. They were pinned down, outgunned, and out of time.

“Cease fire!” Arthur commanded, raising a hand. The gunfire abruptly stopped, leaving a ringing, agonizing silence in the warehouse, broken only by Elias’s ragged, dying breaths.

Arthur stepped forward, flanked by his men. “It’s over, boy. Slide the gun out. Kick the journal across the floor, and step out with your hands up. Or my men will throw a fragmentary grenade behind that pillar and turn you both into mist.”

Julian looked at Nora, his eyes filled with a desperate, heartbreaking sorrow. He had promised to protect her, to tear the Prescott empire down, and he had failed. He reached out, gently touching her cheek one last time.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

Nora shook her head, tears streaming down her face, but she grasped his hand tightly. “I’m not.”

Julian dropped the magazine from his Glock, ejected the chambered round, and tossed the empty weapon out onto the open floor. He picked up the leather journal and stood up slowly, pulling Nora up with him, keeping his body positioned squarely between her and the mercenaries’ guns.

Arthur smiled, a cold, reptilian curving of his lips. He walked forward and snatched the journal from Julian’s hands. He flipped through the pages, his eyes glinting with triumph as he looked at the intricate ciphers that could have ruined his life.

“Eighteen years,” Arthur laughed softly, shaking his head. “Helena almost had me. She was a brilliant woman, Julian. Much smarter than your pathetic father. But in the end, idealism always loses to power.”

Arthur snapped the journal shut and handed it to one of his mercenaries. “Burn it. Burn the whole building down with them inside.”

As the mercenary took the book and reached for a flare, Nora’s eyes suddenly darted to the workbench behind Arthur. The emergency backup generator had kicked on, bathing the decryption computer in a dim, flickering light.

And sitting on the keyboard, glowing softly under the monitor’s light, was the locket.

Nora remembered the photograph inside. She remembered the six-year-old girl with the missing tooth, standing in the winter garden. And in a flash of blinding, pure clarity, she remembered the very last thing Helena Hawthorne had whispered in her ear before pushing her out the door.