Chapter 6 - The Unraveling Syndicate
"Who tracked her?" I asked, my heart seizing with cold dread as I wrapped Ren in a double layer of wool.
"Not the feds," Colton answered, his voice devoid of emotion as he loaded a heavy tactical drum into an automatic rifle. "Navarro's strike team. And someone on my own executive board sold the transponder codes."
"Your board?"
"My brother Tom," Colton said, his jaw clenching so hard a tendon jumped along his neck. "Tom never wanted legitimate shipping routes. He wanted the cartel's drug money. When he realized I was turning state's evidence with Jade to wipe our family name clean for Ren, he cut a side deal with Navarro. That’s why he was at Paige's house, Lauren. He wasn't trying to bring you home to me. He was trying to take you hostage so I wouldn't testify."
A cold shudder ran through my entire body. Tom’s desperate shouts in the alley behind Paige's house suddenly took on a sickening new context. He hadn't been trying to stop me out of concern; he had been trying to capture Colton's only vulnerability.
"The cabin isn't defensible," Jade wheezed, struggling to sit up while clutching her bandaged shoulder. "We’re trapped in a hollow. They have high ground from the eastern ridge."
"We aren't staying here," Colton said, turning to look at me. He stepped forward, his eyes searching mine with a raw, desperate intensity. "Lauren, there’s an old logging tunnel behind the fruit cellar. It leads half a mile down the ravine to the river docks where Grandpa kept the fishing flatboats. Can you take Jade and Ren through the tunnel?"
"What about you?" I grabbed his torn lapel, my fingers digging into the fabric. "Colton, you can't fight an entire hit squad by yourself!"
"I don't need to defeat them," Colton said, reaching out with one rough, soot-stained thumb to gently wipe a tear from my chin. "I just need to buy you fifteen minutes. Once you hit the river docks, there's a boathouse with a shortwave radio. Dial frequency 142.8. That connects directly to the FBI tactical command center in Gainesville. Tell them Agent Foresight is secure and provide the coordinate drop."
"No," I whispered, clutching his arm. "Don't do this. Don't leave us."
"I spent five years building an empire to protect you, and all it did was bring wolves to our doorstep," Colton said, his voice dropping into a tender, heartbreaking murmur. He leaned down and placed a soft, lingering kiss against Ren's forehead, then pressed his lips firmly against mine. His mouth tasted of salt, iron, and desperation. "If I die today, Lauren, you take Ren and you live clean. You take the trust fund in Zurich. You never look back at Atlanta. But as long as my heart is beating, no one touches my daughter."
A sudden hail of automatic gunfire shattered the front windows of the cabin, showering the room in flying wood splinters and glass.
Jade cried out, rolling onto the floor. Colton shoved me down into the hallway, raising his rifle and returning fire with three disciplined, thunderous bursts that blew the cabin's front porch railing to splinters.
"Cellar! Now!" Colton roared over the deafening cracks of gunfire.
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I didn't look back. I grabbed Jade by her good arm, hoisted her to her feet, and pushed her through the wooden hatch into the dark stone cellar beneath the kitchen. With Ren secured against my chest in the cloth carrier, I pulled the heavy trapdoor shut behind us, locking the bolt just as another volley of bullets ripped through the ceiling above our heads.
The war for our family had begun.
