The steel line snapped with a deafening crack, unleashing a whip-like recoil that sliced clean through the air.

Carlos and the boy went into a sickening freefall, plunging toward the gaping, ruined cavity of the rooftop floor below. The wind screamed in Carlos’s ears as the concrete framework rushed up to meet them. Instinct took over; he wrapped his arms around the boy’s skull, twisting his torso in mid-air to absorb the brunt of the impact.

They hit the collapsed secondary roof with a bone-shattering thud. The corrugated metal groaned under the force, yielding just enough to keep them from instantly breaking every bone in their bodies. Carlos skidded across the jagged debris, sharp edges tearing through his coat and slicing deep into his shoulder before they slammed into a thick concrete support pillar.

Pain exploded across Carlos’s chest, stealing his breath. Coughing violently, he spat blood onto the dust-covered floor, his vision swimming with red static. He looked down immediately. The boy was still unconscious, his chest rising and falling in shallow, ragged hitches. The luminescent purple threads under his skin had stopped crawling, but they remained fixed like a hideous, dark map beneath his forearm.

High above, the helicopter’s engine roared as it banked hard to the west, vanishing into the torrential rain and smog of the city skyline, taking Mateo—and whatever game he was playing—with it.

«Dad!» Sarah’s voice echoed down from the jagged ledge high above the structural crater. She was dangling over the broken lip, her body half-illuminated by the dying emergency strobes of the building. «Dad, can you hear me?!»

«Stay back!» Carlos shouted, his voice gravelly and raw. He tried to push himself up, but his left knee buckled under a sharp, stabbing heat. «Don’t come down here, Sarah! The thumb drive—did you get the drive?»

«I have it!» she yelled down, holding the small silver stick tightly against her chest. «Dad, the roof structure is collapsing! The lower levels are flooding with gas—the auxiliary lines ruptured when the terrace dropped!»

A low, guttural hissed sound suddenly rose from the darkness beneath the twisted rebar behind Carlos.

He froze. Slowly, he dragged himself around the pillar, pulling the boy with him into the shadow. Out of the rising mist of sulfurous yellow gas, a shadowy figure emerged from the rubble, dragging a ruined leg.

It was Marcus.

Half of his face was a mask of raw blood and concrete dust, his left arm dangling uselessly at his side. But in his right hand, he held a heavy, tactical combat knife, its blade gleaming dully in the amber emergency lights.

«You… don’t… get to leave,» Marcus wheezed, every breath accompanied by a wet, rattling choke. He took a staggering step forward, his eyes burning with an unhinged, suicidal frenzy. «Julia was just the mouthpiece, Carlos. You think Mateo betrayed her for you? You’re so blind…»

«Put the blade down, Marcus,» Carlos said, reaching for his side before remembering his sidearm had been lost in the fall. He backed up against the pillar, shielding the boy with his own body. «It’s over. The syndicate is exposed.»

«Exposed?» Marcus let out a horrific, bloody laugh, taking another lurching step. «The thumb drive Sarah is holding… it isn’t an extraction log. It’s the activation trigger for the micro-filaments. The moment she plugs that drive into any network, it broadcasts the signal that liquefies the kid’s brain.»

Carlos’s pulse hammered against his ribs. He looked up toward the ledge where Sarah stood, already pulling out her handheld field terminal to analyze the drive.

«Sarah, no!» Carlos screamed at the top of his lungs, his voice echoing off the concrete walls. «Don’t insert the drive! Sarah, abort!»

Up on the ledge, Sarah paused, her finger hovering millimeters above the port on her terminal. She looked down into the pit, confusion writ large across her face.

Taking advantage of the distraction, Marcus lunged.

Despite his broken body, the strike was blindingly fast. The combat knife flashed through the air, driving straight for Carlos’s throat. Carlos instinctively brought his forearm up, catching Marcus’s wrist. The force of the blow slammed Carlos against the pillar, the cold edge of the steel stopping barely an inch from his jugular.

Marcus pressed down with all his remaining weight, blood dripping from his chin directly onto Carlos’s cheek. «He dies… or you die, Carlos,» Marcus snarled in his ear. «Choose.»

With a roar of agony, Carlos drove his shattered left knee directly into Marcus’s open gunshot wound on his shoulder.

Marcus shrieked, his grip slipping just enough for Carlos to twist his arm and drive his elbow hard into Marcus’s jaw. The knife clattered onto the concrete deck. Carlos rolled, pinning Marcus to the floor and slamming a heavy fist across his face, once, twice, until the man stopped moving.

Panting heavily, Carlos retrieved the knife and stumbled back to the boy. He grabbed the boy’s coat and hauled him toward the secondary service stairwell door that hung loosely off its hinges at the back of the floor.

«Sarah!» Carlos yelled, reaching the threshold of the stairwell. «Destroy the drive! Throw it into the fire!»

From above, Sarah looked down at the thumb drive in her hand. Her jaw set with determination, but before she could throw it into the inferno below, a smooth, cold metallic click sounded right against the back of her skull.

«I wouldn’t do that if I were you, little girl,» a quiet, melodic voice whispered from the darkness of the upper doorway behind her.

Sarah’s breath hitched. She slowly turned her head.

Standing behind her in the shadows, uninjured and holding a silenced pistol level with her eyes, was Julia.

Sarah’s eyes widened in horror, her gaze flicking down to the pristine gray coat—there was no blood, no bullet hole, no sign of the injury Mateo had inflicted in the sky.

«Surprised?» Julia purred softly, stepping closer into the light. She reached out with a gloved hand and gently took the silver drive from Sarah’s trembling fingers. «The woman Mateo shot in the helicopter was unit four. Did you really think I’d attend a reunion with your father in the flesh?»

Julia pulled back the slide of her pistol, fixing her cold blue eyes on Sarah’s face. «Now, drop your weapon and call your father up here. It’s time we finished the family reunion.»