The underground VIP garage is damp and smells of exhaust and old concrete.

Katerina walks quickly, her heels clicking against the pavement. She pulls her keys from her purse, pressing the unlock button. A black SUV flashes its lights fifty yards away.

A sharp, terrified scream echoes through the cavernous space.

Katerina freezes. The sound of a child in pain bypasses her brain and strikes directly at her maternal instincts. She ducks behind a thick concrete pillar, peering into the dim light.

Near the exit ramp, a gray, unmarked van is idling. Two massive men wearing black ski masks are dragging a small boy toward the open sliding door.

The boy is kicking and thrashing. The overhead fluorescent light flickers, illuminating the side of the boy's face.

Katerina's breath stops.

The dark hair. The straight nose. The exact curve of his jaw.

It's Leo.

Her mind registers a split-second flash of something wrong-the boy is wearing a formal navy suit, not Leo's usual clothes-but the fluorescent light cuts out again, plunging the van into shadow, and she doesn't have time to think. In her mind, the men are shoving her entire world into that van.

A blinding, roaring rage erupts in her chest.

She kicks off her stilettos. Barefoot, she sprints out from behind the pillar.

One of the kidnappers is pushing the boy into the backseat. Katerina uses the hood of a parked sedan as a springboard. She launches herself into the air, her leg swinging in a brutal arc.

Her shin connects with the back of the kidnapper's neck with a sickening crunch.

The man grunts and collapses face-first onto the concrete.

The second kidnapper spins around, his eyes wide. He pulls a serrated hunting knife from his belt and lunges at her.

Katerina sidesteps the blade. She grabs his wrist with both hands, using his forward momentum to twist his arm violently behind his back. The bone pops. The knife clatters to the floor.

She drives her elbow into his throat. He drops to his knees, gasping for air, clutching his crushed windpipe.

Katerina dives into the back of the van. She grabs the terrified boy, pulling him tightly against her chest.

"Leo, Leo," she gasps, her voice breaking as she switches instinctively to Mandarin, the language she always used with her son in their most private moments. "Are you hurt? Let me look at you."

Julian is completely frozen. He stares at the beautiful, frantic woman holding him. He doesn't understand the language, and he has never, ever been hugged like this. He stays completely silent, his body stiff.

The sound of shouting and heavy boots echoes from the stairwell entrance.

Katerina assumes it's more kidnappers. She scoops Julian up, holding him tight, and sprints toward her black SUV.

She throws him into the passenger seat, slams the door, and jumps behind the wheel. The engine roars to life. She slams her foot on the gas. The SUV tires squeal, burning rubber as she smashes through the wooden exit barrier and speeds out into the Manhattan traffic.

Ten seconds later, Cayden bursts into the garage, a dozen armed men behind him.

He sees the two groaning men on the floor and the empty gray van.

"Where is he?!" Cayden bellows, grabbing a security guard by the collar.

"Camera room! Now!"

Cayden storms into the security booth. The guard scrambles to rewind the footage. The screen is grainy, the angle poor.

Cayden watches the footage. He sees a woman in black clothes and oversized sunglasses take down the two men with lethal precision. He watches her grab Julian, put him in a black SUV, and speed away.

Cayden hits the pause button. He leans in, his nose almost touching the monitor. He stares at the black tailored suit the woman is wearing.

It's the exact same suit the doctor, Astrid, was wearing under her lab coat.

Cayden's fist slams down on the glass-topped desk, the heavy surface shuddering under the violent impact.

"It was her," Cayden snarls, his eyes burning with a murderous, unhinged light. "The doctor. She orchestrated the whole thing. Find that black SUV. Bring her to me alive. I'm going to tear her apart."

A yellow New York taxi screeches to a halt just outside the main entrance of the private clinic.

Five-year-old Leo pushes the heavy door open and hops out onto the curb. He is dressed in a baggy Thrasher hoodie, ripped jeans, and a backward baseball cap. A cherry lollipop sticks out of his mouth.

He taps the GPS tracker on his wrist. His mother's signal is moving fast.

Before he can take a step toward the clinic doors, the roar of a high-powered engine grabs his attention.

A black SUV bursts out of the underground garage exit, taking the corner so fast it nearly rides up on two wheels.

Leo watches it pass. The passenger side window is rolled halfway down.

Leo's 200-IQ brain processes the image in a fraction of a second. Sitting in the passenger seat of his mother's car is a boy wearing a custom-tailored navy suit.

A boy who has his exact face.

Leo stops chewing his lollipop. His jaw drops. His mind races through a million calculations, cross-referencing genetic probabilities and the classified files he had hacked from his mother's encrypted drives.

Before he can piece the puzzle together, the glass doors of the clinic fly open.

Cayden Merritt storms out onto the sidewalk, looking like a demon straight out of hell. He is barking orders into a headset, his eyes scanning the street with frantic desperation.

Cayden's gaze sweeps past the pedestrians and locks instantly onto the small boy standing by the curb.

The face is identical. In his panicked, hyper-focused state, Cayden's brain filters out everything that doesn't match his desperate search. The baggy hoodie, the ripped jeans, the baseball cap-they don't register. All he sees is the face of his missing son.

Cayden lunges forward. He drops to his knees on the dirty sidewalk and pulls Leo into a bone-crushing hug.

Leo's face is smashed against a broad chest. The smell of expensive cedar and tobacco fills his nose. He tries to push away, his hands pressing against the man's shoulders.

"Julian," Cayden breathes, his voice shaking with a vulnerability that shocks Leo. "Where did you go? Do you have any idea what could have happened to you?"

Leo looks up. He sees the sharp jawline, the amber eyes. He recognizes this face from the "Extreme Danger" folder on his mother's laptop.

This is Cayden Merritt. The sperm donor. The man who destroyed his mother.

Leo's mind clicks into gear. The boy in the car with his mother. This man calling him Julian.

We are twins.

Leo stops struggling. A slow, wicked plan forms in his brilliant mind. He needs to get inside the Merritt empire to find out what really happened five years ago.

He mimics the psychological profile of a traumatized child. He goes completely limp and silent, staring blankly ahead.

Cayden feels the boy go still. Guilt washes over him. He thinks Julian is in shock.

Simon pulls the armored Maybach up to the curb. Cayden scoops Leo up and climbs into the back seat.

"Back to the estate," Cayden orders the driver. "Maximum security protocols."

As the car pulls into traffic, Cayden finally looks down at the boy sitting next to him. His brow furrows. He touches the fabric of the cheap hoodie.

"Julian," Cayden says slowly. "Why are you wearing these clothes? Where is your suit?"

Leo doesn't miss a beat. He looks Cayden dead in the eye, his voice flat and monotone. "The bad men made me change. They said my suit was too easy to spot."

Cayden's jaw clenches. His fists tighten on his knees. The explanation aligns perfectly with his assumption of a kidnapping. "I will kill them," he whispers.

Leo turns his head to look out the tinted window. Beneath the brim of his baseball cap, a cold, calculating smirk spreads across his face.

The Trojan Horse is in.

The convoy of black vehicles glides through the massive wrought-iron gates of the Merritt estate in Long Island.

The car stops in front of the sprawling stone mansion. Cayden steps out first, turning to carefully help Leo down.

Leo steps onto the pristine gravel. He looks up at the towering facade of the house. So this is the prison she lived in, he thinks, his small hands curling into fists inside his hoodie pockets.

A line of nervous servants stands at attention by the massive front doors.

Suddenly, a woman in a flowing silk dress comes running down the marble staircase inside the foyer. Her heels click frantically.

Carmella Valdez.

Her eyes are red, her face twisted into a mask of exaggerated agony. "Julian! Oh my god, my sweet baby!"

She throws herself forward, arms wide open, aiming to wrap Leo in a dramatic embrace.

Leo has seen her face in his mother's files. He knows exactly who she is.

Just as Carmella is about to touch him, Leo casually takes a step to the left.

Carmella's hands grasp empty air. Her momentum carries her forward, and she trips over her own heels, stumbling awkwardly before catching herself on a marble pillar. A flash of pure, venomous hatred crosses her face before she quickly hides it.

Cayden steps up, thinking Julian is just avoiding touch due to trauma. "Give him space, Carmella."

Carmella turns, tears welling in her eyes. "I was just so worried, Cayden. I thought I lost him."

Leo stares at her. He pulls the lollipop out of his mouth. "Your perfume smells like garbage."

The entire foyer goes dead silent. The servants stop breathing. Julian Merritt has never spoken more than two words at a time, and he has certainly never insulted anyone.

Carmella's face turns a blotchy, ugly red. Her mouth opens and closes like a fish. "Julian... sweetheart, this is your father's favorite scent."

"Then his nose is broken," Leo says, his voice crisp and loud. "It makes me want to throw up. Stay away from me."

Cayden stared, a deep frown forming. This wasn't Julian. This sharp-tongued defiance... was it a trauma response? A new, desperate way of protecting himself? For a moment, he didn't know how to react, the unfamiliar aggression both jarring and, in a dark corner of his mind, strangely intriguing.

"Go change, Carmella," Cayden says dismissively.

Carmella bites her lip so hard it almost bleeds. She turns and marches up the stairs, her fists clenched at her sides.

Cayden kneels in front of Leo. "Are you hungry? What do you want?"

Leo looks directly into Cayden's amber eyes. "I want a computer. The highest specs available. Custom built. And I don't want any parental control software on it."

Cayden blinks. "A computer? You hate screens."

"I got kidnapped today," Leo says, his tone dark and serious. "I need to learn how to hack. Next time someone tries to take me, I'm going to destroy their entire network."

Cayden lets out a sudden, booming laugh. It's the first time he's laughed all day. He reaches out and ruffles Leo's hair. "That's my boy. You'll have it in thirty minutes."

The head butler leads Leo up the grand staircase to a massive, toy-filled bedroom.

The moment the heavy bedroom door clicks shut, the childish innocence drops from Leo's face entirely.

He walks over to the window, looking down at the armed guards patrolling the perimeter. He reaches into the sole of his sneaker and pulls out a micro-USB drive loaded with his custom decryption software.

He smiles. It's time to go to work.