Chapter 3 - Out of the Shadows**
Four men stepped out of the black SUV.
They weren't local street thugs or low-level enforcers. They wore sleek tactical turtlenecks under tailored jackets, moving with the synchronized, silent discipline of professional mercenaries. Each of them carried suppressed submachine guns held close to their chests.
The man who stepped out of the front passenger seat was tall, with slicked-back blonde hair and a thin, jagged scar cutting across his left cheek. I whimpered, burying my face against Andrew’s coat.
That was the man who had held the heavy zip-ties while they dragged Mommy out of our kitchen.
“Well, well, well,” the scarred man called out, his voice dripping with oily amusement as he sauntered toward us, his boots crunching loudly on the gravel. “Look what we have here. Little Miss Runaway and her pathetic little charity case.”
Andrew didn't move an inch. He stood between me and the approaching men like a black mountain, his expression carved from granite.
“You’re trespassing, Viktor,” Andrew said. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried across the empty street with the weight of an executioner's axe.
Viktor stopped twenty feet away, a crooked smile spreading across his thin lips. He glanced briefly at the two bodyguards flanking Andrew, then back at the boss himself.
“We aren't here for you, Mercer,” Viktor sneered, lifting his chin arrogantly. “That brat of a nurse managed to slip us a note before we bagged her, and apparently, she stashed her little daughter right around here. Hand the kid over, and we walk away. We have an elite wedding to prepare for, after all. The buyer in Zurich is paying top dollar for a virgin bride with clean medical credentials, and we don't like delays.”
My breath hitched. Zurich. That was the word I had heard them shouting on the phone.
I clutched Andrew’s coat tighter, my knuckles turning white. Please don't let them take me. Please don't let them take Mommy.
Andrew looked down at the crumpled five-dollar bill still clutched tightly in his fist. He slowly unfolded it, his eyes scanning the shaky red ink I had scrawled across the back—the exact location of the subterranean holding cells beneath Ashwood Nursing Home, and the names of the corrupt administrators backing the syndicate.
Then, Andrew raised his head.
The dark, quiet fury in his eyes made Viktor’s confident smile falter for a fraction of a second.
“You touched my brother,” Andrew said, his voice dropping into a terrifying, dead calm.
Viktor chuckled nervously, trying to regain his footing. “Your brother is dead, Mercer! We put him in the ground nine years ago—well, technically we put him in a medically induced coma so he’d sign over his shares, but close enough! He’s—”
“He was kept alive in Ashwood Nursing Home,” Andrew interrupted, stepping forward out of the shadow of the pillar. “Drugged. Starved. Tortured by your syndicate to steal my family's legacy. And you thought you could hide him behind a sham marriage ring?”
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Viktor’s face went rigid. He raised his suppressed submachine gun, his eyes widening in sudden panic. “Kill them! Kill them both right now!”
Before Viktor’s finger could even begin to squeeze the trigger, the shadows around the alley exploded into violent motion.
