I Found My Pregnant Wife on a Hospital Floor—Then Her Sister's Face Changed When She Saw the Camera / Chapter 24 / 75

Chapter 24 - The Smoke and the Shadow

The tear gas hit my eyes like boiling water.

Nathan’s scream was instantaneous—a piercing, terrified shriek that shattered my heart.

"Nathan!" Khloe screamed, coughing violently as the chemical smoke filled our lungs. "Mark! I can't breathe! I can't see!"

"Cover his face with your shirt!" I roared, grabbing Khloe’s waist with one arm and using my body as a shield against the expanding cloud. "Get down! Stay on the floor!"

Through the blinding haze of smoke, the sound of heavy boots echoed from the air duct maintenance corridor behind the deposit wall. Two silhouettes in tactical respirators emerged through the smog, moving with ruthless, military precision.

They weren't trying to shoot us. They were carrying zip-ties and stun batons.

Miller fired two shots into the smoke—*BANG! BANG!*—the muzzle flashes lighting up the subterranean tomb like lightning strikes. A body hit the floor with a heavy thud, but the second operative lunged forward, sweeping Miller’s legs out from under him with an iron sweep. Miller's head struck the edge of the brass deposit wall, and the detective went limp.

"Khloe! Run!" Isabella shrieked.

Through the stinging tears in my eyes, I saw Isabella launch herself at the remaining operative. She didn't have a weapon. She had only her bare hands, her broken fingernails, and the ferocious, suicidal desperation of a sister trying to atone for a lifetime of vanity. She threw her entire body weight against the man's throat, clawing at his respirator.

"Take Nathan!" Isabella screamed at Khloe through the gas, her voice raw and ragged. "GET HIM OUT OF HERE!"

The operative slammed an elbow into Isabella's ribs, knocking her to her knees, but she didn't let go. She clamped her teeth down onto his forearm, holding him pinned against the vault frame.

"Mark, the maintenance hatch!" the depository manager yelled from the far corner, coughing up blood and bile as he pulled open a low, three-foot-tall iron access door meant for plumbing lines. "It leads to the subway tunnel under Washington Street! Go!"

I grabbed Khloe by the arm, half-dragging, half-carrying her toward the low hatch. She was crying, choking, but her arms were wrapped around Nathan with the unbreakable strength of maternal instinct. Our son was screaming, his face buried deep into her chest beneath her wet woolen sweater.

"I can't leave Isabella!" Khloe sobbed, trying to turn back toward the smoke. "Mark, she’s going to die!"

"If we stay, Nathan dies!" I snarled, pushing her through the iron hatch into the cold, damp darkness of the subway conduit. "Go! Khloe, crawl!"

I glanced back through the smoke one last time before dropping into the tunnel.

Through the thinning gas, standing by the open door of Box 402, was a figure.

He wasn't wearing a tactical vest. He wore an elegant, charcoal-gray cashmere overcoat. In his hand, he held a walking stick topped with a polished silver skull.

He looked down at Isabella, who lay bleeding on the marble floor, and then he raised his head.

His gray eyes locked with mine through the smoke.

It was Anthony Davis.

Not a twin. Not an imposter.

The father Khloe had mourned, the man whose ashes we had supposedly cast into the wind, was standing upright, breathing without a wheeze, looking down at me with cold, aristocratic contempt.

He raised a single finger to his lips, signaling silence.

Then he reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a small remote detonator, and pressed the switch.