The timer on the tablet burned red: 58:17.
Emilia kept staring at it until the numbers blurred before forcing her gaze to Ethan. Dark and drying blood still streaked his forearm but his eyes were steady and calculating. He'd already moved Alexa, gagged her with a strip torn from his own shirt before dragging her to a utility closet and locked it. Now he stood over the armory panel again, pulling out a compact black duffel.
"Vest," he said, tossing her a lightweight tactical vest. "Put it on. Now." he ordered.
Emilia fumbled the straps with numb fingers. The Kevlar felt cold against her ribs as Ethan stepped behind her and adjusted the Velcro with quick, efficient pulls with his knuckles brushing her spine once, twice. She shivered, although not from cold.
He handed her the stun gun she'd used on Alexa. "Keep it. Point and press. No hesitation."
She nodded. "Carla…" she swallowed, her voice catching.
"Marcus is already en route to her location and he'll get her out." Ethan said, as he zipped the duffel and slung it over one shoulder. Inside it were extra magazines, a suppressed rifle broken down into sections, night-vision goggles, a small breaching charge.
"We handle Alan first and since Derek wants you to walk in. We're going to make him regret that invitation."
The tablet chimed, new feed. It was Derek's study again. Alan sat rigid, the heart-rate collar blinking green around his thin neck with as sweat beaded on his forehead. Derek paced behind him, phone to his ear, laughing at something someone said on the other end.
He glanced at the camera, winked.
"Forty-seven minutes left, sunshine. Tick-tock."
The feed cut.
Ethan's jaw clenched so hard a muscle jumped. He turned to Emilia. "Are you ready to walk into the lion's den?"
"No," she said honestly "But I'm ready to burn it down."
A ghost of a smile touched his lips; sharp and approving. "Good."
He led her to a service stairwell hidden behind a false panel in the penthouse wall. They descended, fast and silently twenty floors down to the sub-basement garage, where Marcus was waiting beside a matte-black armored Suburban, whose engine was already running.
There were no plate numbers and the windows were tinted to obsidian.
"Carla's secure," Marcus said the second they reached him. " I pulled her out two minutes ago. She's shaken but breathing and Alexa's intel was good, too good because Derek had a second team waiting at her place."
Ethan nodded once. "Get her to the secondary safe house. No stops."
"You're clear on the back roads. I'll shadow from a distance." Marcus said, as he handed Ethan a set of keys.
Ethan slid behind the wheel while Emilia climbed into the passenger seat as the door thudded shut like a coffin lid.
The Suburban roared out of the garage, its tires biting asphalt. Ethan drove with lethal precision through side streets and alleys, avoiding every main artery where Derek's people might have eyes. Streetlights flickered past in streaks of gold and red. The dashboard clock ticking down in sync with the mental countdown in Emilia's head.
55:03.
Ethan's voice cut through the silence. "Talk to me. What's the layout of Derek's study? Exits. Windows. Security."
Emilia closed her eyes, as she forced the memories up like bile. "There are two doors, one to the hallway and the other to a private panic room behind the bookshelves. Then there was the floor-to-ceiling windows on the east wall with bulletproof glass. The desk faces the door while he keeps a loaded Beretta in the top right drawer. There's a hidden camera in the chandelier because he likes to watch."
Ethan absorbed it without comment. "Okay. About the collar. How's it triggered?"
"It had a remote that's probably on his phone. Or Amanda's. He'll have a failsafe, dead-man switch if his heart rate spikes too fast."
Ethan's fingers tightened on the wheel. "We get in, we get Alan, we get out. No heroics."
Emilia turned to him. "I'm not leaving without ending this."
He glanced at her, long enough that the Suburban drifted half a lane before he corrected. "You end it by surviving and that's the only victory that matters tonight."
She looked away, her jaw set.
The city lights blurred past, indifferent.
They reached the Carson estate perimeter at 49:12.
Ethan killed the headlights a quarter-mile out and coasted to a stop behind a line of palms. The mansion loomed ahead, lit like a fortress with floodlights sweeping the grounds. Two guards patrolled the front gate while there was another on the roof with a rifle.
Ethan pulled night-vision goggles from the duffel, and handed her a second pair.
"We go in through the service tunnel under the east wing. Old maintenance access Derek never bothered to seal. I scouted it last week." he said strapping his googles on.
The world turned green and ghostly as Emilia strapped the goggles on.
They slipped out, moving low and fast across the lawn; shadow to shadow. Ethan led the way, his knife in one hand and the suppressed pistol in the other. At the service hatch he knelt, working the lock with a pick set. It popped open in seconds.
They descended into damp concrete darkness with pipes hissing overhead as the tunnel smelled of mildew and old money, they emerged in the basement laundry room, it was empty and the machines were silent. They went up one flight of back stairs. Through a servants' corridor, past a wine cellar. Their every step measured and every breath controlled.
By 41:08, they were at the study door.
Ethan pressed his back to the wall and signaled her to stay low as he eased the door open a crack. Inside, Derek stood at the window, his back to them, but his phone still in hand. Alan sat bound with his eyes closed and his breathing shallow. The collar blinked steadily. Amanda wasn't visible, she was probably in another room.
Ethan raised the pistol, sighted.
"Wait. If you shoot, the collar triggers." Emilia touched his arm as she whispered.
Ethan's jaw worked as he lowered the gun a fraction.
Derek turned then, slowly and theatrical, as if he'd felt their eyes on him.
He smiled straight at the cracked door.
"Ah. Right on time." He chuckled as he tapped his phone.
The collar beeped once, a warning tone.
Alan's eyes snapped open. as Derek's voice carried on, calm and amused.
"Come in, Hammer. Bring my wife so we could finish this like civilized people."
Ethan's finger hovered on the trigger.
Emilia stepped forward pushing the door wide before he could stop her. She walked in alone with her hands raised.
Her eyes locked on her father.
"Dad," she whispered.
Alan's face crumpled. "Emilia… no…"
Derek laughed; low and triumphantly.
"Perfect. Exactly how I envisaged. Now drop the weapons, Blackwood. Or Grandpa here gets a very permanent arrhythmia."
Ethan stepped in behind her but the pistol was still raised.
The room went still.
Then Derek lifted his phone, with his thumb over the screen.
"Three… two…" he began
Emilia lunged forward but not at Derek, but at the panic-room door behind the bookshelves.
She slammed her palm against the hidden latch, the one she'd discovered months ago during one of Derek's "business calls.
The bookshelf swung inward, it didn't not reveal not a safe room rather Amanda Carson who was gagged and bound to a chair her eyes wide with shock, and in her lap was the remote trigger for Alan's collar.
Derek's face drained of color.
"You…" he stuttered.
Emilia ripped the remote free and crushed it under her heel.
The collar beeped it's final warning before it went dark.
Alan slumped forward, alive.
Ethan moved like lightning, whipping his pistol across Derek's temple.
Derek dropped.
But as he fell, his phone skittered across the floor with the screen still lit.
A countdown of its own: 00:07.
And a single line of text:
"Secondary trigger active. Location: unknown."
Emilia stared at the screen.
Then at her father.
Then at Ethan.
The mansion lights flickered and somewhere deep in the house, a low rumble began, like a heartbeat made of machinery, as the floor beneath them trembled.
Just once.
Then again.
Harder.
Ethan's eyes met hers—dark, urgent.
"Run."
They grabbed Alan
and bolted for the door.
Behind them, Derek stirred on the carpet, laughing through bloodied teeth.
"Too late, sunshine…"
The rumble grew to a roar, as the east wing windows shattered inward as something massive and explosive, detonated below.