The red warning light above the operating room finally clicked off. The heavy automatic doors slid open.

Heidi walked into the hallway. She pulled off her blood-spattered surgical mask, revealing her pale, exhausted face.

Christian immediately stepped forward. The Page family executives behind him held their breath.

Heidi looked at Christian's tense jawline. "The surgery was a complete success. He is stable."

A collective sigh of relief echoed down the corridor. Executives hugged each other.

The hard lines around Christian's eyes softened. He looked at Heidi with a complex mix of deep gratitude and intense awe.

He stepped closer and held out his right hand. "The Page family owes you a debt we cannot repay, Doctor."

Heidi looked down at his large, calloused hand. Her mind flashed to the hospital room four years ago. The hand that signed her death away.

She kept her hands shoved deep inside her white coat pockets.

"It's a transaction, Mr. Page," she said coldly. "Pay my invoice."

Christian's hand hung in the air. He slowly lowered it. He wasn't angry. He was completely captivated by her ice-cold demeanor.

At that exact moment, a strange vibration buzzed against Heidi's thigh.

It wasn't a normal phone call. It was coming from the encrypted device in her right pocket.

Buzz-buzz-buzz. Buuuzz-buuuzz-buuuzz. Buzz-buzz-buzz.

Three short. Three long. Three short. SOS.

Heidi's heart stopped dead in her chest. It was the emergency beacon she had built for Caleb.

She immediately turned her back to Christian. She pulled the device out. The screen flashed a string of code. Her brain translated it in half a second.

WE ARE TAKEN.

A violent chill shot up Heidi's spine. Her pupils contracted to pinpricks. Her fingernails dug so hard into the metal casing of the phone that her skin tore.

Christian's eyes narrowed. He saw the muscles in her back instantly lock up. He saw the sudden, ragged shift in her breathing.

He took a step toward her. "Doctor? Is there a problem? I have resources-"

Heidi sucked in a sharp breath. She violently shoved the terror of a mother deep down into her gut. When she turned around, her face was a blank wall of ice.

"No," she lied smoothly. "Just an emergency consult at another hospital."

Before Christian could say another word, Heidi ripped off her white coat. She threw it at a passing nurse and broke into a run toward the elevators.

The second the elevator doors closed, her legs shook. She pulled out her phone and dialed her brother Iain's encrypted line.

"Activate the Sky Eye system," Heidi hissed, her voice trembling with pure murder. "Track Caleb's signal. Now."

Ten seconds later, Iain's voice came through. "Queens. Abandoned industrial park."

Heidi sprinted out of the hospital lobby. She ripped open the door to her Range Rover and slammed her foot on the gas. The heavy SUV roared down the Manhattan streets, blowing through three red lights.

Back in the hospital corridor, Christian stared at the closed elevator doors. His eyes were dark and calculating.

She was lying. The look in her eyes wasn't about a medical consult. It was the look of a cornered, violent animal.

Christian turned to his assistant. "Pull the hospital security feeds. Track her car. I want to know exactly where she is going."

The chase was on.

The black Range Rover screeched to a halt outside a rusting, dilapidated auto factory in Queens. Dust kicked up into the night air.

Heidi reached under the driver's seat. She pulled out a Glock 19. She screwed the black suppressor onto the barrel with practiced, deadly efficiency and shoved the gun into her trench coat pocket.

She kicked the rusted side door open. The smell of old motor oil and damp concrete hit her face.

In the center of the massive, empty warehouse, a single yellow bulb swung from the ceiling.

Caleb and Seraphina were tied to metal chairs under the light. Caleb sat perfectly straight, his eyes cold and calculating. Seraphina's face was stained with tears, but she bit her lip to stay quiet. When she saw Heidi step out of the shadows, her eyes lit up.

Sitting on a stack of tires a few feet away was Bobbie Weeks. He was a heavy man with cheap tattoos covering his forearms. He took a drag from a cheap cigarette and laughed.

"You got guts, lady. Coming alone," Bobbie sneered.

Heidi stopped ten paces away. She looked at him like he was already a corpse. "Let them go."

Bobbie stood up. He pulled a switchblade from his pocket and flicked it open. He held the blade inches from Caleb's cheek.

"Fifty million in Bitcoin," Bobbie demanded, tapping a tablet on the barrel next to him. "Send it to this wallet, or the boy loses an eye."

Heidi didn't blink. A cruel, mocking smile touched her lips. "Do you really think you're smart?"

Bobbie frowned.

"You're a low-level thug from downtown," Heidi said, her voice echoing in the empty room. "Does your daughter, Brigette, know you're doing this? Or is she too busy playing a high-society whore at the Page estate?"

Bobbie's face went pale. His eyes darted around in panic. He didn't expect this rich doctor to know his true relationship with Brigette—a scandalous secret that could destroy her fake high-society persona.

Anger flushed his face red. "Shut your mouth!" he roared. He pressed the knife closer to Caleb. "I'm counting to three! One! Two-"

Heidi drew the Glock.

Pfft.

The suppressed gunshot was a dull thud.

The bullet tore straight through Bobbie's right wrist. Blood exploded into the air.

Bobbie screamed like a slaughtered pig. The switchblade clattered to the concrete. He fell to his knees, clutching his shattered wrist.

Heidi closed the distance in three strides. She kicked his uninjured hand away and slammed the sharp heel of her stiletto down onto the back of his bleeding hand, pinning it to the concrete floor.

Bobbie shrieked in agony, thrashing on the floor.

Heidi pressed the hot muzzle of the Glock directly between his eyes. "Do you still want the Bitcoin?" she whispered.

Behind her, Caleb's sharp eyes darted around, landing on a jagged shard of rusted metal near the leg of his chair. He subtly shuffled his feet, using the sharp edge to saw relentlessly at the worn rope binding his ankles until it snapped. He quickly freed his sister, and pulled her behind a concrete pillar.

Bobbie sobbed, his face twisting in terror. "Please! I was just hired! I just wanted the money!"

Heidi ground her heel harder into his bone. "Who hired you? Give me a name!"

The pain broke Bobbie's mind. Desperate to find leverage, he screamed the one thing he thought would stop her.

"I'll tell you everything!" Bobbie gasped, spitting blood as his voice dropped to a desperate, raspy whisper that only she could hear. "It was Brigette! She saw how Christian looked at you today! She was terrified you'd take her place! But there's more! I know her biggest secret! She answers to a man she calls The General! They are the ones who arranged the warehouse fire four years ago! I set the blaze! I can testify against them!"

The words echoed off the metal walls.

Heidi froze. Her pupils dilated violently. Her finger tightened on the trigger.

The confession hung in the damp air, instantly chilling the blood in Heidi's veins. The warehouse fire. Four years ago.

Heidi didn't panic. Her eyes went completely dead. She pressed the barrel of the Glock harder into Bobbie's eyeball, forcing his head back against the concrete.

"Who is The General?" she asked, her voice dropping to a terrifying, icy whisper.

Bobbie trembled violently. "I don't know his real name! I swear! I just poured the gasoline that night! Brigette wanted the original wife dead so she could steal the Page heirs! Please, if you want to ruin Brigette, I'm your best weapon!"

Heidi's stomach twisted. The General. Brigette wasn't working alone four years ago. There was a deeper rot.

Before she could interrogate him further, the piercing wail of police sirens shattered the night. The heavy thud of helicopter rotors shook the tin roof of the factory.

Blinding white searchlights swept through the broken windows, illuminating the dust in the air.

Heidi cursed under her breath. Christian's men had tracked her.

She couldn't let Christian find Bobbie. If Christian interrogated him, Brigette and The General would realize their past crimes were exposed, and her ultimate targets would scatter into the shadows before she could destroy them piece by piece.

Heidi flipped the gun. She slammed the heavy steel grip directly into Bobbie's temple. His eyes rolled back, and he slumped unconscious to the floor.

She turned and ran to the pillar. She grabbed Caleb and Seraphina. "Close your eyes. Don't look at the blood."

She dragged them toward a rusted iron grate she had spotted on the blueprints. She kicked it open and pulled the children down into the dark maintenance tunnels just as the front doors exploded inward.

A SWAT team flooded the factory, laser sights cutting through the dark.

A moment later, Christian walked through the shattered doors. He wore his black overcoat, flanked by his elite security detail.

His dark eyes scanned the room. He saw the empty metal chairs. He saw the massive pool of fresh blood on the concrete.

His assistant knelt next to Bobbie. "Sir. Suspect is unconscious. Gunshot wound to the wrist. Blunt force trauma to the head."

Christian walked closer. His expensive leather shoe crunched on something metallic.

He looked down. He picked up a 9mm brass casing. He rubbed his thumb over the scratches on the metal. Suppressor marks.

The Surgeon wasn't just a doctor. She was a trained killer. The violent contradiction didn't push him away; it ignited a dark, obsessive fire in his chest.

"Mr. Page," a bodyguard called out from the corner. "Found this."

The guard handed Christian a tiny, black metal device. It was Caleb's SOS transmitter. Engraved on the back was a microscopic letter C.

Christian stared at the device. The metal was cold in his palm.

Suddenly, a memory slammed into his brain like a freight train. The blurry ultrasound photo from four years ago. The way the woman in the garage felt in his arms. The way the little girl at the airport had looked at him.

His heart started to hammer against his ribs. A wild, impossible theory clawed its way up his throat.

What if she didn't die? Whose children were those?

Christian turned his head, staring at the open grate leading into the tunnels. He could almost feel her ghost slipping away in the dark.

He dropped the brass casing and the transmitter into a plastic evidence bag. He handed it to his head of intelligence.

"Extract the DNA and fingerprints from this device," Christian ordered. His voice was a lethal, vibrating hum. "Run them through every database we have access to. I want to know who this child is. And run a facial recognition scan on the mother against all global records, cross-reference with any known associates of the Page family from four to five years ago. If anyone leaks this, I will bury them."

The wind howled through the broken factory windows, whipping Christian's coat around his legs. He stood in the blood-soaked room, his eyes burning with absolute certainty.

The game of hide and seek was over.