Chapter 3 - The Secret Inside the Bunny.
Ethan slammed Caldwell sideways just as a suppressed shot cracked from the trees.
The bullet struck the stone column behind them and sprayed white dust across the steps.
Vivian dropped over Sophie and dragged her behind a marble balustrade.
The government agents below scattered toward the SUVs.
Another shot shattered a headlight.
“Inside!” Ethan shouted.
Vivian scooped Sophie into her arms and ran upward.
Caldwell followed with one hand pressed against a bleeding scrape on his temple.
The mansion doors slammed behind them.
An agent locked the heavy brass bolts.
Vivian did not slow down.
She crossed the foyer and entered her father’s old library.
“Who fired that shot?”
Ethan followed her inside.
“We don’t know.”
“You arrived with federal protection.”
“And someone knew exactly when we would arrive.”
Caldwell closed the library doors.
“That means the operation is compromised.”
Vivian turned on him.
“The operation was compromised before you put my daughter’s name in a custody order.”
Sophie was trembling against her shoulder.
Vivian carried her to the leather sofa.
“You stay right here with me.”
Sophie nodded.
“Can Bunny stay too?”
“Yes.”
Vivian knelt and studied the seam behind the rabbit’s left ear.
Nathan’s stitching had been too precise to be a hurried repair.
She pulled a small sewing kit from a drawer and cut two threads.
Ethan stepped closer.
“Be careful.”
Vivian ignored him.
Inside the stuffing was a tiny brass key wrapped in waxed paper.
There was also a folded strip of cloth containing six handwritten numbers.
Caldwell went pale.
“I know those numbers.”
Vivian looked at him.
“From where?”
“Your father.”
General Thomas Vale had owned the estate before his death three years earlier.
He had spent forty years in military intelligence and the last ten refusing to discuss most of his work.
Vivian had always believed the locked rooms and coded safes were remnants of an old man who had forgotten how to stop being a soldier.
Now Caldwell crossed the room toward a framed photograph above the fireplace.
“He used that sequence in Black Lantern.”
Vivian’s anger sharpened.
“My father knew about this unit?”
Caldwell did not answer quickly enough.
Vivian stepped between him and the photograph.
“You stood at his funeral too.”
“He founded it.”
The revelation landed like another gunshot.
Vivian stared at him.
“My father founded Black Lantern?”
“Yes.”
“And Nathan worked for him?”
“For years.”
Vivian looked at the key in her palm.
“What else have you lied to me about?”
Caldwell’s face tightened.
“Enough to keep you alive.”
Vivian almost struck him.
Instead, she turned toward the carved wooden globe beside her father’s desk.
As a child, she had watched him rotate it whenever he was thinking.
Six small brass markers were embedded along the equator.
The numbers from the cloth matched their positions.
Vivian pressed them in sequence.
A hidden panel clicked open beneath the desk.
Inside was a narrow steel safe.
The brass key fit perfectly.
Vivian unlocked it.
There was no ledger inside.
There was only an old digital recorder and a black envelope addressed in Nathan’s handwriting.
VIVIAN — IF THEY COME FOR SOPHIE, TRUST NO WARRANT.
Her hands shook as she switched on the recorder.
Nathan’s voice filled the library.
“Viv, if you are hearing this, Caldwell has already failed.”
Caldwell’s face drained of color.
Nathan continued.
“The person running Black Lantern now is not the person you think.”
May you like
A heavy crash sounded from the foyer.
Then the mansion lights went out.
