I Found My Pregnant Wife on a Hospital Floor—Then Her Sister's Face Changed When She Saw the Camera / Chapter 56 / 75

Chapter 56 - The Ghost in the Crosshairs

The red laser burned against the center of Khloe’s forehead like an open ember. Another crimson dot trembled violently against the white wool of the swaddle, resting directly over Grace’s fragile, sleeping chest.

"Get down!" I roared.

My body moved before my conscious mind could process the horror. I lunged across the shattered glass of the lakeside terrace, driving my shoulder hard into Khloe’s waist. The concussive blast of a suppressed sniper rifle cracked through the freezing night air at the exact microsecond we collided.

A high-velocity round punched through the double-pane French doors right where Khloe’s skull had been an instant before, pulverizing the mahogany frame into a storm of splinters.

We slammed onto the cold marble floor. I twisted mid-fall, taking the brunt of the impact on my back, wrapping both arms around Khloe and the baby to cushion them. Grace shrieked, her high-pitched wails tearing through the roar of the assault boat idling thirty yards off the private pier.

Across the room, Isabella screamed—a raw, feral sound of pure self-preservation. With the laser sights thrown off by our sudden drop, she scrambled on hands and knees like an animal, clawing toward the reinforced steel hallway that led to the villa’s underground wine cellar.

"Marcus!" Khloe gasped, pinned beneath my weight, her face white as chalk, her eyes wild with terror and a sickening betrayal that ran deeper than the fear of death. The gun she had held to Isabella’s skull had skidded across the floorboards. "Marcus... what did she say? What did she mean about Ohio?!"

"Khloe, stay down!" I yelled over the deafening mechanical churn of the boat’s twin inboard engines.

Through the shattered patio frame, the floodlight swept over us, blinding and absolute. The synthesized baritone boomed again from the boat's external horn, vibrating the floorboards beneath our chests:

*"Did you really think the grave could hold me, Khloe? Anthony Vance doesn't burn. He inherits."*

My breath caught in my throat. It was Anthony’s cadence. Anthony’s cruel, patronizing pitch. But Anthony had died in the fire in Winnipesaukee—I had seen the charred rafters collapse on top of him. I had watched the flames consume his flesh.

Unless that wasn't Anthony. Or unless the man who had burned in the lake house was someone else entirely.

A three-man tactical breach team in black maritime assault gear leaped from the bow of the boat onto the slick wooden boards of the pier. Their boots hammered in rapid cadence. Submachine guns with mounted flashlights cut through the swirling fog of Lake Geneva.

"We have thirty seconds before they breach the threshold," I hissed, grabbing Khloe’s arm and dragging her behind the massive granite kitchen island that sat in the center of the open-plan lounge.

Khloe pulled her arm away from my grip as if my touch carried poison. She pressed Grace against her collarbone, shielding the crying newborn with her own torso. Her eyes were wide, dilated with shock, locking onto me not as her husband, but as a stranger.

"Did you find me?" she whispered, her voice shaking violently against the metallic clatter of boots on the dock outside. "Five years ago. When I was running from Boston... when I hid in Cincinnati under a fake name. You found me, didn't you? You worked for him!"

"Khloe, look at me!" I begged, pulling the Glock from my waistband and checking the chamber with a sharp flick of my thumb. "I will tell you everything. Every single filthy detail. But if we don't move right now, Grace will not see the sunrise!"