The icy blackness of the Hudson swallowed them whole. Cold slammed into Maya like a concrete wall, knocking the remaining air from her lungs in a cloud of silver bubbles. Her toddler’s limbs jerked in violent panic, but Maya squeezed the child fiercely against her chest, kicking desperately with her free leg against the dragging weight anchored to her right ankle.

Underneath the churning surface, murky dock light filtered through the water, illuminating the heavy iron cable wrapped round her boot—a submerged debris trap suspended from the rotting pier pylons. Her lungs burned. Her pregnant belly cramped tightly under the intense pressure of the deep plunge.

Above, shadow figures plunged hands into the water, blinding flashlights cutting through the murky depths. Maya reached down with her trembling right hand, fumbling blindly in her coat pocket. Her fingers brushed the icy metal of the brass key—and the second small weapon Arthur had left on the leather seat. She had snatched it seconds before jumping.

She pressed the small barrel directly against the heavy wire loop pulling her under and pulled the trigger.

A muted thump reverberated through the water. The blast severed the rusted cable, and the recoil shot pain up her arm. Springing free, Maya kicked hard, her lungs screaming for oxygen as she broke the surface underneath the dark, slime-covered wooden floorboards of the pier, meters away from the dock edges where tactical boots pounded the planks overhead.

Gasping for air in the narrow six-inch air pocket between the freezing river and the underside of the pier, Maya pressed her shivering child against her neck. «Shh, baby, keep quiet,» she breathed into the girl’s wet hair, her teeth chattering so hard they clicked.

Directly above them, heavy footsteps came to a sudden halt.

«Did you see her surface?» her mother’s voice snapped through the cracks in the floorboards, cold and completely devoid of maternal panic.

«No, Director,» Arthur’s voice replied from inches above Maya’s head. «The shock of the fall… and the water temperature. She couldn’t have survived with the child and the baby she’s carrying.»

«Search the pylons,» the Director ordered flatly. «If she dropped the key into the riverbed, bring up the dive team. We have twenty minutes before the harbor patrol responds to the missile detonation.»

Maya held her breath, pressing her back against a ice-slick wooden beam. Through the quarter-inch gap in the planks, she watched the shadow of Arthur’s polished shoes turn slowly. But as Arthur moved, something fell from his coat pocket, slipping right through the floorboard gap and splashing softly into the dark water inches from Maya’s hand.

It was a small, waterproof GPS transponder—blinking with a steady, rhythmic green light.

Maya’s blood ran colder than the river. He hadn’t dropped it by accident. He had marked her exact position under the dock for the dive team.

Terror spurred her forward. Staying silent, she began to side-step through the deep water, clinging to the slimy cross-beams, dragging her shivering child through the subterranean dark beneath the pier toward the shoreline. Behind her, heavy splashes echoed as two men in dark wetsuits hit the water.

Bright underwater beams sliced through the murky river, sweeping across the pylons behind her like searchlights.

Maya pushed through a heavy curtain of floating debris and hauled herself onto a muddy, trash-strewn embankment beneath the concrete bridge abutment. Her legs shook so violently she could barely stand. She checked her child—gasping, wet, but breathing.

Suddenly, a shadow blocked the dim moonlight at the top of the embankment.

Maya raised the small black pistol with numb, trembling hands, her finger tightening on the trigger. «Stay back!»

«Maya, put it down!» a frantic whisper came from the shadows.

A figure stepped down the mud slope, pulling off a dark tactical helmet. It wasn’t Arthur, and it wasn’t one of her mother’s mercenaries.

It was Julian. His suit was torn, his face smeared with soot and fresh blood, a military-grade earpiece flashing red against his ear.

«You’re supposed to be dead,» Maya choked out, the gun barrel trembling between his eyes. «You fired the missile!»

«I fired the missile at Arthur’s helicopter to stop him from taking you to her!» Julian hissed, dropping to one knee in the mud and extending a hand. «I’ve been trying to keep you away from the Director for three years! Arthur isn’t working for me, Maya—he was her handler the whole time! Everything you think you know about your father’s death, about the company, about me—it’s all a lie she built to get you to untangle the encrypted key!»

Maya stared at him, her mind spinning wildly in the freezing dark. «Why should I trust you?»

«Because your mother didn’t just come back for the key,» Julian whispered, his eyes wide with genuine horror as he looked at her swollen stomach. «The key isn’t for a bank vault or a server, Maya. It’s a biometric lock. And it doesn’t open with your thumbprint—it opens with the DNA of your unborn child.»

A heavy crunch of gravel echoed from the top of the embankment. Bright headlights suddenly blinded them as a massive armored transport breached the perimeter fence above, casting long, menacing shadows down the mud slope.

Julian grabbed Maya’s arm, pulling her toward a narrow drainage pipe hidden in the concrete wall. «Go! Now!»

Before Maya could step into the dark pipe, a high-pitched electronic chime echoed from the brass key still clutched in her frozen pocket. The key’s smooth surface split open, revealing a tiny LCD screen pulsing with red numbers: 00:59… 00:58… 00:57…

«It’s activated,» Julian gasped, staring at her pocket in utter shock. «How is it activated? The child hasn’t even—»

He stopped dead.

Maya looked down at the key, then up at Julian, as a sickening realization washed over her.

«Julian,» Maya whispered, her heart stopping in her chest as the timer ticked down to thirty seconds. «Who is the father of this baby?»