Chapter 30
KANE
We walked purposefully toward the building entrance through rain that hammered down with punishing, violent, unrelenting intensity.
Within seconds, we were both completely soaked through to the skin.
Water streamed endlessly down my face, into my eyes, plastering my short hair flat against my skull, soaking through my jacket and shirt until everything clung cold and uncomfortably heavy against my skin like a second layer.
I didn't care about the discomfort. Didn't register it beyond basic awareness.
My worst fear was running on brutal, vivid repeat in my head like a tactical nightmare scenario I couldn't shut down no matter how hard I tried to focus.
Someone from Consortium Prime got impatient waiting for whatever carefully planned message they wanted to send me.
Decided to dramatically accelerate their timeline.
Grabbed the easiest, most vulnerable, most defenseless target they could possibly find in my vicinity—a five-year-old girl who couldn't defend herself or understand what was actually happening.
And now they were coldly using her as direct leverage to hurt me. To punish me for killing one of their own in that abandoned building.
To make me suffer before they finished the job.
I would die before I let that happen to Sabine.
Before I allowed my violent actions and past sins to destroy an innocent child who'd done nothing except exist.
And when I was inevitably dead—if it came to that final outcome—I fully expected Connor and the rest of the Nine to methodically burn the Consortium's entire fucking world down to smoking ash and salt the scorched earth afterward.
No mercy. No hesitation. Total war.
Beside me struggling through the downpour, Ella was barely holding herself together.
Her breathing was too fast, too shallow, too panicked. Hands visibly shaking even clenched into fists. Eyes wild with barely controlled panic she was trying desperately and completely failing to suppress.
She was absolutely right earlier about calling the police immediately.
She had every legitimate right to make that call.
This was technically a kidnapping. A child abduction. Official protocol and emergency procedures existed for exactly this kind of serious situation.
But I'd lied directly to her face without hesitation or guilt.
Told her with complete conviction it was purely for Sabine's sake. To protect the traumatized little girl from being further scared by sirens and flashing lights and armed uniforms and official chaos descending on her world.
Really, truthfully, it was so I could do what actually needed doing in quiet.
Away from witnesses and recording cameras. Away from police procedures and proper legal rules of engagement and inconvenient things like evidence chains and rights.
So I could wrap both hands firmly around the throat of whoever had dared take that innocent child and squeeze steadily, methodically until their fucking head separated completely from their shoulders.
Until they understood exactly what they'd done wrong.
We reached the building entrance, water cascading heavily off the stone archway above.
I pulled the heavy door open against the wind resistance, more water sluicing off the metal frame, and we stepped inside quickly.
The interior hallway was dim and relatively quiet except for the muffled roar of rain battering relentlessly against windows somewhere above us.
I pulled my pistol smoothly from the concealed holster at my back.
Checked it automatically. Ready.
Ella's eyes went to the weapon in my hand, widening with sudden recognition of what it meant.
What I was fully prepared to do.
She moved instinctively toward the stairs like she was going to just run blindly up them.
I caught her arm firmly but not roughly. "Wait."
"She's up there right now," Ella said, voice already breaking apart at the edges. "We need to—"
"I go first," I said with absolute, non-negotiable firmness. "For your safety and hers. This isn't a discussion."
Her eyes were wild with fear and frustration and desperate protective instinct. The overwhelming need to move, to act, to fix this immediately was written clearly across every tense line of her beautiful face.
I could only imagine what horrific scenarios were playing out in her mind right now.
Every possible worst-case outcome probably running on endless loop.
But I knew with tactical certainty that time was critically, desperately precious here.
If there was actually a dangerous man in Rose's apartment with Sabine right now, decisive violent action needed to come fast and hard.
Hesitation could easily cost lives.
Especially small, innocent ones who deserved protection.
We climbed the stairs as quickly as silence and tactical caution allowed, my body automatically shifting into full combat operational mode.
Weight balanced precisely forward on the balls of my feet. Gun held ready in proper two-handed firing position. Eyes continuously scanning in systematic patterns—corners and doorways and shadows and potential threat positions.
Every sense heightened to maximum awareness.
When we finally reached Rose's floor, Ella fumbled desperately for her keys with badly shaking hands.
Took her three frustrating tries to get them out of her coat pocket.
She handed them to me without a word.
I approached the apartment door with extreme caution, every operational sense heightened to combat levels, listening intently for any sound from inside.
Nothing except the relentless pounding of rain against the building exterior.
No voices. No movement.
"Stay back," I told Ella quietly but with unmistakable firmness.
She nodded once, face deathly pale in the dim hallway light.
I tested the doorknob first with careful, minimal pressure.
Locked.
Good sign. Meant no one had violently forced entry or left it carelessly open during a panicked exit.
I inserted the key slowly to minimize any noise, turned it with one smooth practiced motion, and pushed the door carefully inward while simultaneously bringing my gun up in a fluid tactical sweep.
Living room completely empty.
But there were wet spots clearly visible on the hardwood floor. Distinct footprints.
Someone had definitely walked in here before us.
The visible trail led directly toward the closed bedroom door.
My pulse kicked noticeably higher, adrenaline sharpening everything.
I moved carefully across the apartment with deliberate, trained precision.
Feet planting strategically to avoid making noise. Eyes scanning methodically and continuously—every shadow, every corner, every potential hiding spot.
Behind me close but controlled, I could feel Ella's tense presence. Trusting me to lead even though every maternal instinct in her was screaming to rush forward to her niece.
Then I heard it clearly through the rain noise.
A voice. Small. High-pitched. Young and innocent.
A girl's voice, humming something tuneless and content.
Safe. Unaware.
The bedroom door was cracked open.
I approached at a careful angle that wouldn't silhouette me against the hallway light, looked through the narrow gap.
A figure stood completely motionless inside the bedroom wearing a black rain slicker, hood still pulled up obscuring their face and identity, staring down fixedly at something on the floor.
Sabine.
She was sitting cross-legged on the carpet, completely absorbed in playing with small colorful toys like absolutely nothing was wrong in her small world.
Oblivious to any danger.
My chest tightened painfully seeing her there. Safe. Unharmed. Alive.
For now.
I pushed the door open wider with my shoulder, gun trained directly and steadily on the figure's center mass.
"Turn around," I said quietly but with unmistakable command. "Slowly. Hands where I can see them."
The figure didn't move or respond in any way.
Just stood there like a motionless statue.
I was opening my mouth to repeat the command more forcefully when Ella's voice suddenly shattered the tense quiet.
"Sabine!"
Not quiet. Not controlled. Not tactical.
A scream. Raw and desperate and purely maternal.
I reached back just in time to catch Ella's arm, physically holding her back from rushing blindly into the room without knowing the situation.
Good thing I did.
Because the person in the rain slicker finally turned around in response to the sudden noise.
Slow. Mechanical. Wrong somehow.
And there was a gun gripped tightly in his right hand.
Pointed directly down at Sabine's small, defenseless form on the floor.
I could see his face clearly now as the hood fell partially back from the turning movement.
This wasn't a gangster from the Consortium. Not a professional operative sent to deliver a calculated message. Not trained muscle or experienced killer. Just a guy in a suit under the slicker, like he’d just come from work or a cocktail party.
The man's eyes were completely bloodshot and wild. Crazed. Unfocused and darting.
Like he'd been living on nothing but caffeine pills and stale crackers for weeks.
Dark circles under his eyes like bruises. Face unshaven. Hair greasy and unwashed. Clothes rumpled.
His hand shook noticeably as he gripped the weapon.
Amateur. Unstable. Dangerous, specifically because of it.
Unpredictable.
I was opening my mouth to firmly demand he lower the gun immediately when Ella breathed out in pure shock beside me.
Her voice barely audible but carrying complete stunned recognition.
"My God. Randy."
The critical detail took a second to click properly into place in my tactical brain.
Randy.
Rose's husband from New York.
The man she'd left behind to build a secret life in Paris.
Here. In this apartment. In his dead wife's hidden second life.
Holding a gun on his dead wife's daughter.
Shit.