The muzzle flash illuminated Clara’s face for a split second—cold, unyielding, and utterly devoid of mercy.

Julian threw his weight back, plunging off the slippery wooden beam just as the bullet shattered the timber where his neck had been a heartbeat before. He hit the freezing water with a dull splash, the impact sending a blinding spike of agony straight through his ruined shoulder. He surfaced under the shadowed recess of the pier, his lungs screaming for air, wiping seawater and blood from his eyes.

Above him, total chaos erupted.

Automatic gunfire hammered against the fiberglass hull of Clara’s boat as high-powered searchlights swept frantically across the water. The roaring engines of two Interpol speedboats cut through the night, their sirens wailing like dying animals across the bay.

«Get us out of here! Now!» Clara’s sharp, commanding voice pierced through the din of gunfire.

Julian kicked silently through the floating debris, staying beneath the thick wooden support beams. Through the gaps in the planking, he saw two of Clara’s mercenaries grabbing Leo. The boy kicked and screamed, his tiny fists futilely pounding against tactical armor, before they threw him into the cabin of the black craft.

«Leo!» Julian gasped, his voice swallowed by the thunder of heavy caliber fire from the approaching federal boats.

Clara’s vessel roared to life, its high-thrust jet drives spraying a roostertail of foam as it violently maneuvered away from the docks, leaving a swirling wake of fuel and fire behind. Julian lunged forward, grabbing a submerged structural rope floating in the water. He pulled himself up onto the rotting steps of the lower pier landing, his body shaking violently from hypothermia and blood loss.

He slumped against the wooden railing, clutching his leaking shoulder, his vision swimming with dark spots. The heavy footsteps of tactical boots thundered down the main pier above him.

«Target boat is fleeing south toward open water!» a voice barked over a radio headset. «Get medical down here! We have a body in the water—Marcus Vance is confirmed dead!»

Julian pressed his back against the damp piling, trying to merge with the shadows. If Interpol caught him now, he would spend the rest of his life in a maximum-security black site—or worse, be silenced before he could ever reach his nephew.

He slid his good hand into his soaked coat pocket. His fingers brushed against something hard and plastic. It was Marcus’s encrypted satellite phone, snagged off the dock in the frantic seconds before the blast. The screen flickered to life, its back-light casting an eerie blue glow over Julian’s face.

A single new text message popped up on the cracked display, sent just twenty seconds ago from an unlisted international number:

Phase One complete. The boy is secured. Proceed with the exchange at the Zurich vault before Julian finds the ledger.

Julian’s breath hitched. Clara wasn’t taking Leo to hide him—she was using him as a key.

A sudden rustle behind him made Julian freeze. He whipped his head around, reaching instinctively for a weapon he didn’t have.

Standing in the shadows at the edge of the tree line, barely five yards away, was a figure dressed in a sleek dark raincoat, holding a silenced pistol lowered at their side. The searchlights from the Interpol helicopter swept past, illuminating a pale, angular face.

It was Agent Miller—the lead Interpol investigator who had declared Clara dead six months ago.

Julian’s knuckles turned white around the satellite phone. «You knew,» Julian whispered, his voice dangerously low. «You falsified her autopsy report.»

Miller didn’t raise his gun. Instead, he reached into his coat, pulled out a small, heavy silver key, and tossed it onto the wet timber at Julian’s feet.

«You have six hours before my team sweeps this sector,» Miller said quietly, his voice laced with a strange, dark urgency. «If you want to save that boy, don’t go to Zurich, Julian. Clara isn’t working for the cartel. She’s working for your father.»

Julian felt the world tilt beneath him. «My father died ten years ago.»

Miller stepped backward, dissolving into the darkness of the trees. «That’s what she wanted you to believe.»

Before Julian could move, the sharp sound of a gun cocking clicked directly behind his left ear.

«Don’t move, Mr. Vance,» a cold, unfamiliar voice rasped from the shadows beneath the pier. «Or your story ends right here.»