Chapter 5 - The Child They Were HuntingClaire pulled Emma behind her.
“Don't touch my daughter.”
Ethan's eyes remained fixed on the child.
“I wasn't going to.”
Daniel kept his weapon trained on him.
“You're supposed to be dead.”
“I was.”
“For eleven years?”
“Long enough to learn what our father built.”
Daniel's finger tightened on the trigger.
“What did he build?”
Ethan smiled.
“An empire.”
“I already have one.”
“No.”
Ethan's smile vanished.
“You inherited the wreckage.”
He looked at Claire.
“Your husband discovered the real business.”
Claire's voice shook.
“What business?”
Ethan answered:
“Children.”
Claire went pale.
Daniel looked at his brother.
“Explain.”
“Our father ran a network through construction companies. Warehouses. Shipping contracts. Private security. Children were moved through all of it.”
Claire covered Emma's ears.
“No.”
Michael had discovered the system.
He copied records.
He tried to expose it.
“He was killed,” Ethan said.
Claire shook her head.
“By your family?”
“Yes.”
Daniel looked sick.
“My father ordered Michael's death?”
“He did.”
“And you survived.”
“Barely.”
Daniel lowered the gun.
For the first time, Ethan looked surprised.
Daniel whispered, “Why did you come back?”
“To finish what Michael started.”
He looked at Emma.
“She has what Michael stole.”
Claire's mind raced.
“My daughter doesn't have anything.”
Ethan shook his head.
“She doesn't know she has it.”
Daniel suddenly remembered the key.
The stuffed rabbit.
The photograph.
The number behind Michael's frame.
He looked at Emma.
“What did your father give you, sweetheart?”
Emma looked confused.
“Daddy gave me lots of things.”
“Before he died.”
She thought.
Then she pointed at her bedroom.
“My rabbit.”
Daniel's face changed.
They ran upstairs.
Emma grabbed the old stuffed rabbit from the bed.
Claire noticed the stitched eye.
“What is inside?”
Emma squeezed it.
“Nothing.”
Daniel took a knife and carefully opened the seam.
A tiny memory card fell into his hand.
Claire stared.
“That?”
Daniel inserted it into a secure computer.
Files appeared.
Bank accounts.
Names.
Photographs.
Shipment records.
And a folder labeled:
EMMA BENNETT.
Claire's breathing stopped.
Daniel opened it.
There was one video.
Michael appeared on screen.
He looked exhausted.
“Claire, if this reaches you, they know about Emma.”
He paused.
“She wasn't supposed to survive.”
Claire covered her mouth.
Michael continued.
“The people we're fighting believe Emma witnessed something at the warehouse. She didn't. She was too young.”
He looked directly into the camera.
“But she inherited something else.”
The video stopped.
Daniel stared at the screen.
“What?”
Then the computer went black.
Every light in the mansion shut off.
The alarm started screaming.
Ethan looked toward the window.
“Too late.”
Men shouted downstairs.
Gunfire erupted.
Daniel pulled Claire and Emma behind a reinforced wall.
Ethan drew his weapon.
“Who are they?” Claire asked.
Ethan answered:
“Keegan's men.”
Daniel looked at his brother.
“You brought them here.”
“No.”
Ethan stared at Emma.
“They followed her.”
A bullet struck the wall inches from Claire's head.
Daniel shouted:
“Basement!”
They ran.
But halfway down the stairs, Emma stopped.
“Mom.”
“What?”
She pointed upward.
Someone stood at the top of the staircase.
A woman.
Dark coat.
Red scarf.
Claire recognized her immediately.
Her neighbor.
Mrs. Holloway.
The elderly woman who had babysat Emma for two years.
Claire stared.
Mrs. Holloway smiled.
“I told them where to find you.”
Daniel raised his gun.
The old woman laughed.
“You really thought this was about the child?”
May you like
She looked at Emma.
“It was always about the mother.”
